Almaciga

With other sources of hardwood timber diminishing, the industry is turning its eyes on almaciga, which is highly prized and carries a premium on the market.

What the redwood is to California, the giant almaciga (Agathis philippensis) is to the Philippines. The almaciga, one of the few species of conifers that can grow in the humid tropics, is a relative of the New Zealand kauri pine (Agathis australis). Both almaciga and kauri belong to a family of evergreens found only in the Southern Hemisphere whose ancestors first appeared in the Jurassic Period, about 150million years ago. Fossil records indicate that members of the genus Agathis made their way from the Australian region into Southeast Asia during the Ice Ages when sea levels were lower and the channels between islands were narrower. 
     Almaciga is a huge tree, up to 60 meters tall and with a trunk three meters wide. Its bark is grayish brown and forms large, flat, angular scales resembling a jigsaw puzzlepieces. Its massive trunk is cylindrical, straight and clear, not branching until it reaches the narrowly conical crown where it radiates into slender whorls of stiffly projecting branches. Both male and female cones are produced on these branches; The female cones are much larger than male cones and take two years to mature. Seeds can be fertilized with pollen from the same tree or from another nearby. The seeds have wings that allow them to float away from the parent tree when the cone breaks into pieces.
     Almaciga yields a valuable resin known on the world market as Manila copal, used in the manufacture of varnishes and linoleum. Tapping the resin has been an important source of income for many ruralpeople in the Philippines. Almaciga is now listed as a potentially threatened species because excessive tapping coupled with destructive methods (such as application of sulfuric acid to stimulate resin production) has killed many trees. With other sources of hardwood timber diminishing, the industry is turning its eyes on almaciga, which is highly prized and carries a premium on the market. We can only hope the almaciga does not meet the fate of the kauri pine, which was exploited to exhaustion in New Zealand during the first half of this century.

Original URL: http://archive.fieldmuseum.org/vanishing_treasures/V_Almaciga.htm