''Shorea macrophylla'' (called, along with some other species in the genus ''

Shorea Fruit of a ''Shorea'' species ''Shorea'' is a genus of about 196 species of mainly rainforest trees in the family Dipterocarpaceae. The genus is named after Sir John Shore, the governor-general of the British East India Company, 1793–1798. Th ...

'', light red meranti) is a species of

plant Plants are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic eukaryotes of the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all curr ...

in the family Dipterocarpaceae. It is a tree

endemic Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

Borneo Borneo (; id, Kalimantan) is the List of islands by area, third-largest island in the world and the largest in Asia. At the geographic centre of Maritime Southeast Asia, in relation to major Indonesian islands, it is located north of Java Isl ...

Etymology

In Sarawak, ''Shorea macrophylla'' is known as ''Engkabang'' in the

Iban language The Iban language () is spoken by the Iban, a branch of the Dayak ethnic group, who live in Brunei, the Indonesian province of West Kalimantan and in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. It belongs to the Malayic languages, a Malayo-Polynesian ...

. The fruit is also called illipe nuts.

Characteristics

Similar to "candlenuts" of the Pacific, ''Engkabang'' has high vegetable fat content. The fruits usually ripens in January and February and must be gathered rapidly after they fall, as the germination from the fruit is fast. The Engkabang trees are mostly found near the banks of the

Rajang River The Rajang River ( ms, Batang Rajang) is a river in Sarawak, northwest Borneo, Malaysia. The river originates in the Iran Mountains, flows through Kapit, and then towards the South China Sea. At approximately , the river is the seventh-longest i ...

. The trees producing these fruits are 50 metres tall and four metres in girth. The trees bear fruits every four to five years.

Economic value

Engkabang fruits cannot be cultivated commercially, thus can only be collected from the wild. The vegetable fat from the fruits can be used to manufacture cooking oil, soaps, and chocolate. The fruit is shelled and then dried in the hot sun. Then, the dried fruits are pounded to extract the oil. The

Iban people The Ibans or Sea Dayaks are a branch of the Dayak peoples on the island of Borneo in South East Asia. Dayak is a title given by the westerners to the local people of Borneo island. It is believed that the term "Iban" was originally an exonym ...

are the main collectors of the fruits which they brought to the towns and sell to the local Chinese merchants at 50 dollars a

picul A picul or tam is a traditional Asian unit of weight, defined as "as much as a man can carry on a shoulder-pole". History The word ''picul'' appeared as early as the mid 9th century in Javanese. Following Spanish, Portuguese, British an ...

. Engkabang fruits production was highly erratic. In 1961, only 10,000 dollars worth of Engkabang fruits were available for exports. In 1962, the production rose to 16.01 million dollars. Exports in 1966 stood at 4.61 million. In contrast, there was zero production in 1967 as the fruits were destroyed by heavy rains of the

northeast monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal oscill ...

. In the 1960s to 1970s, the price of the dried fruits could fetch as high as RM 2 per kg. In 2013, the price reduced to RM 0.80 per kg.

References

macrophylla Endemic flora of Borneo Trees of Borneo Taxonomy articles created by Polbot {{Dipterocarpaceae-stub