A teak tree in our back yard?
Teak trees are not indigenous to Panama. But there’s a monoculture teak forest only a couple of miles from here as the crow flies. And I’ve seen some old, majestic individual trees on the road into David. So I shouldn’t have been surprised to look up this morning and notice, for the first time, leaves emerging from the top of the wooded area behind our house that look suspiciously like teak leaves.
The common teak tree, Tectona grandis, is a member of the Verbena family (Verbeneaceae). Its leaves are simple, opposite, broadly elliptical. It’s hard to tell from the following picture whether my tree’s leaves fit this description. I got as close as I could, but there are lots of other leaves in the way!
The bark of T. grandis is brown or gray with shallow, longitudinal furrows. I have more confidence that my bark fits this description than I do that the leaf description matches.
But to me, the pattern that made me feel right away that this tree is a teak is the way the leaves droop on the tree itself. Here’s an image from a monoculture teak forest in Costa Rica that shows the pattern pretty clearly.
- compared with the tops of my tree -
Last month I attended a seminar in Boquete presented by Futuro Forestal. This is a company whose goal is to invest in sustainable tropical hardwood forestry. They are growing teak, but they are growing it in mixed stands with mahogany, spiny cedar, native rosewood, and coco bolo. All these hardwood trees are native to Panama except the teak. They make no claims of reproducing a rain forest, in fact they emphasize that they cannot possibly do so. But they’re hoping that forestry like theirs will help take the pressure off timber harvesting within the rain forest. I went to the seminar wearing my BS detectors, but if there was any there, I surely missed it. I do recommend checking out their web site.
What’s left for me to learn is how that teak tree of mine got to the wooded edge of an abandoned pastureland. My first quick searches for seed dispersal on Google Scholar have come up dry, but surely someone knows! I’ll keep looking.
[...] belongs to the Verbenaceae, as does Michael’s sandpaper vine, Petrea volubilis, and even the teak tree (Tectona [...]
Hi,
As I know from my parents, there are variety of Teak trees. Send me the close picture of leaves and back of leaf as well. From the first year onwards teak starts to flower and based on weather, sunlight, fertility of soil somewhere around 10% to 90% of flower gets and finally form seeds. This might be dispersed by wind, bird as you know other kinds. Have you noticed the flowering bunch?
Hi Srenivasan,
It’s timely that you should comment on this post, because I was just thinking that I should try to get at that tree. It’s in the middle of a small but dense grove of trees and I have not been able to get a closer look at it. But recently (early February 2009) we had some severe winds that cleared away some parts of that woods, and I may be able to get to it now. I’ll let you know.
Mary
I am not sure if this is still current but from the shape it looks like a teak leaf. Possibly another test is to look at the cross section of new growth. Teak has basically a square cross section with four prominent ribs. These gradually fill in between as the tree grows older. As for dispersal – wind if close, birds probably otherwise.
Cheers.