mesua ferrea

Ceylon Ironwood, Indian Rose Chestnut, Penaga Lilin or Nahar

Other Common Names: Mesua (India), Penaga (Malaya), Bosneak (Cambodia).

Widely distributed in the forests of India and Ceylon and extending into Indonesia, Malaya, and Cambodia

The plant is named after the heaviness of its timber and cultivated in tropical climates for its form, foliage, and fragrant flowers. It is native to tropical Sri Lanka, Assam, southern Nepal, Indochina, and the Malay Peninsula.

It is a small to medium-sized evergreen tree up to 13 m tall, often buttressed at the base with a trunk up to 90 cm in diameter. It has simple, narrow, oblong, dark green leaves 7-15 cm long, with a whitish underside; the emerging young leaves are red to yellowish pink and drooping. The flowers are 4-7.5 cm diameter, with four white petals and a centre of numerous yellow stamens.

Weight: Basic specific gravity (oven dry weight/green volume) 0.80 to 0.85; air-dry density 60 to 66 pcf.

The National Ironwood Forest is a 96 ha (238 acre) forest in Sri Lanka where Mesua ferara trees dominate the vegetation. It is said that during King Dappula IV's period (8th century AD) this forest was created and the remaining trees are the shoots of it. Hence it is considered the oldest manmade forest in Sri Lanka. According to botanists this is the only ironwood forest in the dry zone with wet zone vegetation.

Symbolism and uses

It is the National tree of Sri Lanka. The wood is very heavy, and is used for railroad ties and structural timber. Its resin is slightly poisonous, but many parts have medicinal properties