Bogo Tree - Garuga Floribunda

Well, i found a latest picture (taken Oct. 25, 2010) of Bogo Tree from my friend's album in Facebook, Marjorie Ybañez Jore. Should you wish to see more pictures of Bogo, you can see more pictures in Marjorie's album in Facebook (well if you and Marj are friends in Facebook).

Bogo tree stands tall infront of the Bogo Cityhall, St. Joseph Village, Bogo City, Cebu. I dont know much about this tree except that its scientific tree is Garuga Floribunda and it was under this tree that early inhabitants of Bogo were making trades with people from neighboring provinces of Leyte, Masbate Negros, and others.

Not until I found this very detailed, scientific and descriptive information about bogo tree from the World Agroforestry Center's website www.worldagroforestrycenter.org

Taxonomy
Current name: Garuga floribunda
Authority: Decne
Family: Burseraceae


Synonym(s)
Garuga abilo Merr.
Garuga littoralis Merr.
Garuga pacifica Burkill


Common names

(Filipino) : burus (Iloko), garuga
(Indonesian) : ki langit (Sundanese)
(Papua New Guinea) : garuga
(Trade name) : kedondong

Botanic description
A deciduous, small to medium-sized or occasionally fairly large tree up to 30(-40) m tall; bole usually straight, cylindrical, branchless for up to 12 m, up to 120(-225) cm in diameter, with buttresses up to 3 m high; bark surface with adhering scales, grey or grey-white, inner bark firmly fibrous, pink, with little clear, resinous exudate. Leaves arranged spirally, crowded at the apex of twigs, imparipinnate; stipules inserted on the petiole, caducous; leaflets 9-21(-31), subsessile, crenate-serrate; stipellae often present, caducous. Flowers in an axillary panicle, bisexual, 5-merous, with a cupular receptacle; sepals free; petals with inflexed tips; stamens 10, inserted on the margin of the receptacle; disk adnate to the receptacle, 10-lobed; ovary superior, 5-locular with 2 ovules in each cell, stigma lobed. Fruit a fleshy, blue drupe with 1-5 1-seeded pyrenes. Seedling with epigeal germination; cotyledons emergent, palmately 3- or 5-lobed; hypocotyl elongated; first 2 leaves opposite and with 3 leaflets, subsequent leaves arranged spirally and with increasing number of leaflets. G. floribunda has been divided into 2 varieties. Var. gamblei (King ex J.J. Smith) Kalkman (synonym: G. gamblei King ex J.J. Smith) occurs in continental South-East Asia, whereas var. floribunda is found from Peninsular Malaysia (rare) eastward towards Melanesia. In Malesian literature G. floribunda is commonly erroneously referred to as G. pinnata, which is a continental species.
Ecology and distribution
Natural Habitat
G. floribunda occurs in seasonal climates in primary and secondary, often periodically dry or very dry monsoon forest and thickets, and in lower montane rain forest. It is also found in coastal forest, teak forest. It is not fire-resistant and can tolerate a periodically high groundwater table.
It is found from the Himalayas to Bangladesh, south-western China, Hainan, throughout Malesia (except for Sumatra and very rare in Borneo (Sabah) and Peninsular Malaysia), the Solomon Islands, northern Australia, Vanuatu, Samoa and Tonga.

Biophysical limits
Altitude: Up to 1200 m. Soil types: It is found on limestone hills, and grows on stony, sandy or clayey soils.

Reproductive Biology
Flowers appear before the new leaves. In general, flowering is at the end of the dry season or the beginning of the rainy season. In Java G. floribunda flowers in June-November and fruits in October-April; in Sulawesi it flowers in September and October; in the Philippines it flowers in March-June and fruits in March-October.

Propagation and management
Propagation methods
G. floribunda can be propagated by seed.

Germplasm Management
There are 15 500-23 000 dry seeds/kg.

Functional uses
Products
Fodder: The leaves are used for fodder. Food: The fruit is edible. Medicine: A decoction of the bark has been given after childbirth. Tannin or dyestuff: A decoction of the leaves has been used to dye mats made from Corypha leaves black. Timber: The wood of G. floribunda is used for general construction, bridge building, posts, light duty flooring, furniture and cabinet work, interior trim, mouldings, shelving, skirting, sporting goods, agricultural implements, boxes and crates, carvings, toys and novelties, and turnery. It is also used for the production of veneer and plywood.

Services
Shade or shelter: G. floribunda is occasionally planted as a shade tree.

Additional Information
Properties
Timber (paragraph 1): G. floribunda yields a medium-weight to heavy hardwood with a density of 500-900 kg/m cubic at 15% moisture content. Test in Papua New Guinea at green condition showed the following mechanical properties: modulus of rupture is 74 N/mm cubic, modulus of elasticity 11 660 N/mm cubic, compression parallel to grain 39 N/mm cubic, compression shear 10.5 N/mm cubic, cleavage radial 61.5 N/mm and janka tangential hardness 6365 N. At 12% moisture content, modulus of rupture is 97.5 N/mm cubic, modulus of elasticity 12 970 N/mm cubic, compression parallel to grain 53 N/mm cubic, compression shear 14 N/mm cubic, cleavage radial 80 N/mm, cleavage tangential 105 N/mm and janka tangential hardness 8010 N. Timber (paragraph 2): The rates of shrinkage from green to 12% moisture content 1.5% radial and 3.2% tangential. Shrinkage of the wood upon seasoning is low; it seasons well with little degrade and only slight end splitting. It is moderately hard and moderately strong. The wood is easy to saw and work with hand and machine tools. It can be planed to a relatively smooth finish but a reduced cutting angle is recommended to prevent grain picking up on the radial surface. The wood is slightly durable to non-durable. The sapwood is permeable to moderately resistant to pressure treatment, the heartwood is highly resistant. The wood is susceptible to dry-wood termites and liable to stain. The sapwood is susceptible to Lyctus. Timber (paragraph 3): Heartwood pale brown, pink-yellow-brown or dark red-brown, often with dark grey streaks or concentric bands, distinct from the up to 8 cm wide, pale yellow or pale yellow-green sapwood which turns greyish-brown upon drying; grain interlocked or sometimes wavy; texture moderately fine and even; wood slightly lustrous and with prominent ""ribbon"" figure on radial surface due to interlocked grain. Timber (paragraph 4): Growth rings indistinct; vessels moderately small to very large, solitary and in radial multiples of 2-3, sometimes in clusters of much smaller vessels, tyloses abundant and dark deposits present; parenchyma paratracheal vasicentric, but mostly indistinct or absent; rays moderately fine; ripple marks absent; radial canals containing dark gummy deposits clearly visible in the rays.

Genetic
Genetic resources: There are no records of G. floribunda in seed or germplasm banks. Trees are occasionally cultivated in botanical gardens.

Bogo tree are now rarely seen in Visayas and Mindanao. I've seen about 10 of it in the mountainous barangays of Malalag, Davao del Sur.

It is commonly named "BOGO" in Visayas and Mindanao.