''Aquilaria malaccensis'' is a species of

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

in the

Thymelaeaceae The Thymelaeaceae are a cosmopolitan family of flowering plants composed of 50 genera (listed below) and 898 species.Zachary S. Rogers (2009 onwards)A World Checklist of Thymelaeaceae (version 1) Missouri Botanical Garden Website, St. Louis. It ...

family. It is found in

Bangladesh Bangladesh (}, ), officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh, is a country in South Asia. It is the eighth-most populous country in the world, with a population exceeding 165 million people in an area of . Bangladesh is among the mos ...

Bhutan Bhutan (; dz, འབྲུག་ཡུལ་, Druk Yul ), officially the Kingdom of Bhutan,), is a landlocked country in South Asia. It is situated in the Eastern Himalayas, between China in the north and India in the south. A mountainous ...

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

Indonesia Indonesia, officially the Republic of Indonesia, is a country in Southeast Asia and Oceania between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It consists of over 17,000 islands, including Sumatra, Java, Sulawesi, and parts of Borneo and New Guine ...

Laos Laos (, ''Lāo'' )), officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic ( Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ, French: République démocratique populaire lao), is a socialist ...

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...

Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

, the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

, and

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is bo ...

. It is threatened by

habitat loss Habitat destruction (also termed habitat loss and habitat reduction) is the process by which a natural habitat becomes incapable of supporting its native species. The organisms that previously inhabited the site are displaced or dead, thereby ...

.Barden, Angela (2000) ''Heart of the Matter: Agarwood Use and Trade and CITES Implementation for Aquilaria malaccensis'' TRAFFIC International, Cambridge, ''The World List of Threatened Trees'' (Oldfield et al., 1998) listed

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

as one of the countries with a population of ''A. malaccensis'', but an exploratory 2002

CITES CITES (shorter name for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, also known as the Washington Convention) is a multilateral treaty to protect endangered plants and animals from the threats of interna ...

review confirmed that Iran has no record of the species. As a result Iran is no longer considered as habitat for or producer of agarwood.

Economics

''Aquilaria malaccensis'' is the major sourceNg, L.T., Chang Y.S. and Kadir, A.A. (1997) "A review on agar (gaharu) producing Aquilaria species" ''Journal of Tropical Forest Products'' 2(2): pp. 272-285 of

agarwood Agarwood, aloeswood, eaglewood or gharuwood is a fragrant dark resinous wood used in incense, perfume, and small carvings. This resinous wood is most commonly referred to as "Oud" or "Oudh". It is formed in the heartwood of aquilaria trees when ...

, a resinous heartwood, used for perfume and incense. The resin is produced by the tree in response to infection by a parasitic

ascomycetous Ascomycota is a phylum of the kingdom Fungi that, together with the Basidiomycota, forms the subkingdom Dikarya. Its members are commonly known as the sac fungi or ascomycetes. It is the largest phylum of Fungi, with over 64,000 species. The de ...

mould, ''

Phaeoacremonium ''Phaeoacremonium'' is a fungus genus associated with wilt and decline diseases of woody hosts and human infections. ''Togninia'' is the teleomorph (the sexual reproductive stage) of ''Phaeoacremonium''. Species * ''Phaeoacremonium aleophilum ...

parasitica'',formerly ''Phialophora parasitica'' Crous, P. W. ''et al.'' (1996) "Phaeoacremonium gen. nov. associated with wilt and decline diseases of woody hosts and human infections." ''Mycologia'' 88(5): pp. 786–796 a

dematiaceous “Black yeasts”, sometimes also black fungi, dematiaceous fungi, microcolonial fungi or meristematic fungi is a diverse group of slow-growing microfungi which reproduce mostly asexually (fungi imperfecti). Only few genera reproduce by budding ...

(dark-walled) fungus.

Threats

Due to rising demand for agarwood, as well as shortcomings in monitoring harvests and an increasing illegal trade, ''A. malaccensis'' is on the brink of extinction in the wild and is now considered critically endangered on the IUCN Red List. Due to large-scale logging operations, many forested areas where ''A. malaccensis'' was once abundant have been destroyed.

Conservation

Despite its endangerment, ''Aquilaria malaccensis'' is highly adaptable and can perform well in areas contaminated by pollution. Due to this, conservation plans have been set in place to raise agarwood in contaminated areas as well as homestead gardens.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q2249742 malaccensis Taxonomy articles created by Polbot Critically endangered flora of Asia Plants described in 1783 Symbols of Tripura