Hopea odorata

Hopea odorata, or ta-khian (Thai: ตะเคียน), is a species of plant in the family Dipterocarpaceae. It is found in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.[1] It is a large tree reaching up to 45 m in height with the base of the trunk reaching a diameter of 4.5 m. It grows in forests, preferably near rivers, at altitudes between 0 and 600m. In places such as West Bengal and the Andaman Islands it is often planted as a shade tree.[3] Valued for its wood, it is a threatened species in its natural habitat.[4]

Hopea odorata
Leaves of Hopea odorata
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Rosids
Order: Malvales
Family: Dipterocarpaceae
Genus: Hopea
Species:
H. odorata
Binomial name
Hopea odorata
Synonyms[2]

Traditions

In Thailand this tree is believed to be inhabited by a certain tree spirit known as Lady Ta-khian (Thai: นางตะเคียน),[5] belonging to a type of ghosts related to trees known generically as Nang Mai (นางไม้).[6] In Cambodia it is known as the koki and the legend of the founding of Wat Phnom in Cambodia refers to the finding of Buddha statues in a koki tree floating in the river.

  • A leaf of Hopea odorata
  • Lengths of brocade tied around the exposed roots of a Hopea odorata tree (ตะเคียน) growing on a steep slope as an offering to Nang Ta-khian
  • Nang Ta-khian
  • Hopea odorata at Hùng Temple, Vietnam
gollark: Yep!
gollark: Also, I find it kind of ironic that a minimalist (well, design-wise) website ends up taking about 5 seconds to load fully, and according to my browser devtools pulls down 6MB of fonts, images, scripts and whatever else. Which is... unfortunately pretty much the standard with the internet now.
gollark: Wait, *final* book? I wonder how it's going to end up resolving everything.
gollark: Fun fact: if you put the URL between < and >, it won't display the embed.
gollark: Yes, it does make sense business-wise, I was just saying that I do not like them doing that.

References
  1. Ashton, P. 1998. Hopea odorata
  2. "The Plant List: A Working List of All Plant Species". Retrieved April 9, 2014.
  3. AgroForestryTree Database - Species information
  4. 2006 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species Archived 2014-06-27 at the Wayback Machine Downloaded on 21 August 2007.
  5. Nang Ta-khian
  6. Spirits


This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.