This is it: the real Kandong Tree

This is it: the real Kandong Tree

The City of Candon search of the real kandong tree is over. The Kandong Tree search team led by Spm Oseas Diasen upon the instruction of City Mayor Allen Singson found it and this time with all evidence to prove it.

Kandong trees mean much to every Candonian because it is the most widely believe origin of its name.

Kandong as locally known to Candonians belongs to the family Melastomataceae. Recent research being conducted by the City Agriculture Office says that Melastomatacea is an Ironwood wood family.

It is believed that its lumbers were used to build our first cathedral.
As it is said to be a premium kind of tree species, superior in tensile strength, exceptional quality and outstanding texture. But all these were just mere myths to us present generation.

No one alive now could really single out what does the tree really looks like. Only few descendants of charcoal makers can give only but mirage hints as to the description and information about the tree.

By the way, the search for the real Kandong tree started from a plain discussion to local flocks.

It started out as just one of the topics brought out during our siesta time after a fulfilling boodle fight lunch prelude by a tree planting activity at the Watershed Development and Reforestation Project.

A certain Victor Bay-ongan and Eddie Barillo of barangay San Andres; descendants of earlier charcoal makers, related how kandong trees used to grow along the versants of the said barangay. Drifted by solicitous curiosity, the same group proceeded to the area where the two informants were saying to have a few stand of the said tree. Leaf and wood samples were then obtained for further study.

It was in this context that the City Agriculture Office launched sort of a re-search of the said tree. The team has gone as far as Santiago Island of Bolinao, Pangasinan, Aurora Province, Tabuk in Kalinga and San Emilio, Ilocos Sur. Two of the cited places recognized and identified the same kandong tree.

No less than Mayor Lorenzo “Boy” G. Bragado of San Emilio, Ilocos Sur and several residents of sitio Maguinudua of barangay Lancuas confirmed the presence of Kandong tree in their locality.

Bragado was quote saying “kandong was one of the oldest hardwood tree species we used as lumber and house construction materials before”.

“It used to lush our forest as one of the endemic tree species but because it was one of the most preferred wood for lumbers, it became rare” Mayor Bragado added. In Santiago Island, KASAMA; one of the most noted successful associations in buricraft making use kandong leaves as dye material. The team then tapped the expertise of two (2) foresters/dendrologists from the Agroforestry Department of the Don Mariano Marcos Memorial State University at Bacnotan to identify the said tree in Bolinao.

To further the search and do not end up to just another fallacious hearsays, technical assistances were sought from the National Museum of the Philippines (NMP), Manila and from the Forest Products Research and Development Institute (FPRDI) at Los Baños, Laguna.

In effect, NMP sent Dr. Domingo Madulid; Scientist IV-Curator and Forester Danilo Tandang of its Botany Division in order to make an ocular evaluation, study and documentation of the tree the City Agriculture Office allegedly claiming as the real kandong tree. Dr. Madulid and Forester Tandang took foliage samples of the tree and compared it with the voucher specimens available at the NMP herbarium.

As a result, the NMP in a sort of initial report, after careful morphological examination identified the tree scientifically as Memecylon lanceolatum, which has a common name in Dendrology (study of trees) as Kandong. The National Museum of the Philippines is the repository and guardian of the Philippines’ natural and cultural heritage which includes flora and fauna. Its Botany Division is tasked primarily to make a systematic inventory of Philippine flora and vegetation.

It maintains the national herbarium which is the reference collection of the different kinds of plants found in this country. At present the collection contains approximately 170,000 specimens.

The search still didn’t stop there. Wood samples were submitted to FPRDI for further recognition via wood physics evaluation. The Forest Products Research and Development Institute (FPRDI) is one of the line agencies of the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

It is the center of scientific breakthroughs and applied technologies on the utilization of forest-based products in the Philippines in response to the need for information and technology on the utilization of timber resources as well as non-wood forest products.

Again, wood samples which were taken from the tree taken from barangay San Andres matched with the seven (7) wood samples kept at the FPRDI archives obtained from seven (7) different provinces which call it kandong.

In order to arrive at impeccable logical deduction as basis for us to institute and establish in our locality through a city ordinance that the said tree is our long lost and the real Kandong tree, we would like to be one-hundred percent sure that it passes through painstaking scientific wood tests, evaluation and verifications.

The city agriculture office has now subjected the tree to wood (cross section and longitudinal examination), leaves, and floral evaluation; seek advices and technical expertise from legitimate scientists, foresters and botanists.

The National Museum of the Philippines is only waiting for the fruit specimen that will be matched up to the specimens at their herbarium before issuing the certification of authentication. Then the never ending search for the real kandong tree will be over. ERIC A. GACUTAN

Search for Kandon Tree Team:

Chairman : Spm Oseas I. Diasen
Project Leader : Elmor L. Leaño
Researcher : Eric A. Gacutan
Documentors : Leoncio G. Balbin Jr.
Arlon Serdenia
Danilo Antalan
Geoffrey Barredo

References/Advisers:
Dr. Domingo Madulid, Phd
Scientist IV-Curator
Botany Div., National Museum of the Philippine

Danilo Tandang
Forester II
National Museum of the Philippines

Fernando Petarque, Jr.
Chief, Anatomy and Dendrology Section-MPED
FPRDI, UP Los Baños, Laguna

Ramiro P. Escobin, PhD
Supervising Sci. Res. Specialist and Scientist I
Anatomy and Dendrology Section
FPRDI, UP Los Baños, Laguna

Dr. Orlando P. Almoite, PhD
Chancellor/Forester
DMMMSU

Mario Cadiente
Professor/Forester
DMMMSU

Ronald Estoque
Professor/Forester
DMMMSU