posted 05-29-2004 04:15 PM               

Or here it is:

Asia’s useful trees and plants
K. L. Noatay

Tun, or the red cedar, is a large-sized deciduous tree. Its scientific name is cederla toona. Some botanists tend to mix the main species with other sister, but less common species like cederla serata or cederla microcarpa. The family is meliaceae.

Tun has a clean bole and a spreading crown — at times hemispherical like an umbrella. Its bark is thin grey. It is smooth up to middle age of the plant but rough thereafter when the tree tends to mature.

Though tun starts showing its existence from Myanmar itself in the East, it is found growing throughout the Indian subcontinent, rather whole of Asia, especially is slightly elevated terrain of the Tarai the Shivaliks and the outer Himalays from 400m to 1500 m or so above mean sea level. It is not uncommon in the Deccan platue as well and can be seen from Sri Lanka upwards in the Indian peninsula, especially tea gardens and roadside revenues.

In its natural habitat tun is found growing in mixed stands comprising other broad-level species like terminalias, albizzias, bombax, ficuses, shisham, acacias, etc. At times it can be seen growing even in chir pine forest, especially low-lying gaps.

The trunk of tun tree is generally straight and cylindrical. The branching starts at a height of 4 to 6 m above ground level. Growth-wise tun is quite a fast growing species. In a favourable location comprising sandy loam soil with good moisture, it can mature in about 70 to 80 years by when its height is about 15 to 20 m and diameter is about 50 to 80 cm. The tun wood shows annual rings to growth, which feature gives a charming grain to it.

The leaves of tun are paripinnale compound, nearly 30 to 50 cm long, having 8 to 30 leaflets. The leaflets are generally opposite, 5 to 15 cm long, 2 to 6 cm wide and lanceolate in shape. These are glabrous above and pubescent below. Young shoots are dark red which soon change to bright green shade.

The tun leaves start falling during November-December and reappear in early spring i.e. February-March. In fact the tree is seldom leafless and can be easily mistaken for an evergreen plant.

Tun bears small but beautiful white flowers arrangement in lax panicles. These start appearing in February-March.

The fruit of tun is a five-valved capsule about 2 to 3 cm long. Arranged in pendulous clusters, these ripen in May-June. The seeds are tiny and winged. These are disseminated far and wide through wind and water action whereby germination and growth of new plants is easy. The tree tends to regenerate profusely in it natural habitat. Nevertheless it can be propagated artificially too. For the purpose the ripe fruit is collected from the tree by hand picking during May-June. The seed so collected is sown in prepared beds directly at the spot where new regeneration/plants are required to be raised. The sowing is also done in nursery beds for raising seedlings for special planting work, especially in the avenues of roads and of canals. The right season for planting seedlings is when these are in leafless state i.e. during December-January. However, the process carried out during monsoons too gives fairly good survival percentage.

The wood of tun is light, yet fairly strong. It is scented and not eaten by whites ants. The heartwood weights about 18 to 20 kg per cubic foot. It is red in colour. That is the reason the tree is sometimes called red cedar. The wood is pretty good for joinery and other carpentry work. In fact, it is highly valued for making cabinets, musical instruments, quality furniture of all kinds, door panels, decorative carving work, tea boxes, cigar boxes. etc. That also is the reason that tun wood is seldom available in good quantity. Its going price these days is around Rs 1500 per cubic foot.

In addition to yielding quality timber, tun has some other important uses as well. The foliage serves as a fodder for cattle at times when it is scarce in the area. The flowers make a good yellow dye (gulnari). The bark is an astringent. It gives resinous gum, which is used as a febrifuge.

Keeping in view the beauty tun lends to the landscape, the excellent and valuable timber that it yields, the shade it provides and the moderation it gives to the environment, it is desirable that the people having access to vacant land should plant as many of tun saplings as possible.
Top