Papua and West Papua is known as the home to the most diverse flora in the world. They have a geographical landscape of archipelagic, tropical marine location, mountains (snow-capped), and lowland wetlands. This island is perfect for a countless number of vegetation species. At the foothills of Cyclops Mountains, there grows the Swang endemic plant.
Swang Wood Plants
There are many different names or pronunciations to call this endemic wood plant. You will probably hear it as swang, sowang (soang), or suwang (suang). In this article, we will use the first one, swang.
Swang wood plant is a vascular-type plant species of Xanthostemon novoguineensis. It is the Xanthostemon species reported from Papua, Indonesia. Since Valeton was the first who studied this species thus swang has its full Latin name as Xanthostemon novoguineensis Valeton. All kinds of Xanthostemon species belong to the family of Myrtaceae.
The Physical Form and Structure
By general appearance, swang plants are in shrub and tree forms. More details about swang physical characteristics are as follow.
- The upright-tree type is the real swang stature. Matoa fruit trees are individual trees that grow from seeds.
- Swang trees can grow higher and reach up to 40 – 50 meters, with an 80-cm diameter.
- The tree bark shows a brown-reddish shade, with unflashy sap liquids.
- The inner tree trunk (heartwood) is dense in dark brown to deep black colors.
- Swang plants have single, flat-edged leaves of phyllotaxis 2/5. The leave shapes are generally elliptic and obelliptic for younger plants and more obovate for mature ones.
Swang endemic plant also has another favorable property due to its tough or resilient nature. The swang wood falls into the category that has a high resistance.
- The first example is that it is a fire-resistant material.
- Second, the wood quality has high resilience to the sea-wooden-type gimlet.
- The third, swang wood is also highly resistant to the attacks from any wood destroyers like, among others, termites, marine borers (molluscs and crustaceans), and wood-decay fungus (white rot and brown rot).
The Habitat – Cyclops Mountains
The home of swang wood plants is at the Cyclops Mountains. This range of mountains stands majestically between the Jayapura City and the Jayapura Regency, Papua Province, Indonesia.
Swang plants grow unevenly on the Cyclops Mountains. People only can find them on the west, south, to the east side of the mountains. The habitat is lowland, where swang vegetation usually lies at 15 to 450 m above sea level. That is why people around the area can find abundant swang at the foothill of Cyclops Mountains or nearby forests, except the natural sanctuary area.
The Traditional Roles
Swang wood has long played a significant role in the traditional life of the tribes that inhabit the Cyclops Mountainous areas. Those communities traditionally use swang wood to make house poles, as part of ritual activities, fence posts, home appliances, firewood, or to make traditional weapons.
Papua native people have known the swang endemic plant and wood even since prehistoric times. Research took place at the Ayauge site, Kampung Doyo Lama, western Sentani Lake. It reported that the house poles still maintained the prehistoric swang wood of former dwellings. They are mostly in the form of stilt houses on the surface of the water.
It is also true with the tribe people who live on the coastline, especially in three areas around Jayapura, namely the Bay of Youtefa, Kayu Pulo, and Batu Kayu area. They similarly use the swang wood as house supporting poles or feet since they are under the water. The wood is highly robust to withstand the sea waves and resistant to the sea wood borers.
Don’t you know that a house made of swang wood (in 15 to 20 diameter) as poles can last for three to four generations or equally to 70 – 100 years? As for domestic use, for cooking, for example, people use swang wood as firewood and thus charcoal. They can repeatedly use the charcoals many times.
The Threatened Native Plants
It is increasingly rare to see a house around Cyclops Mountains that uses swang wood. A similar thing also happens with the swang endemic plant. There are several reasons for their rareness or even nearly extinction. However, the main reason is most likely excessive forest exploitation.
- The habitat is decreasing due to land conversion for settlement and development, particularly in Jayapura areas.
- The reduced swang plants habitat due to forest exploitation for its yield commodities.
- The disruptive legal (and illegal) logging activities by local people and other parties. Those are for charcoal making or other industrial-commercial purposes.
- The forest burning activities.
- Swang has high resistance characteristics yet low degeneration capacity. It takes 50 years minimum to grow and to reach the ideal diameter for use as house poles.
There is still limited scientific information or site data about this Xanthostemon novoguineensis species. Swang wood in the Cyclops Nature Reserve area falls into the category of swang endemic plant. It is rare vegetation due to over-exploitation and the not-yet-successful degeneration efforts. However, Papua and the West Papua government have tried to protect them since 1987.
