Aquilaria is a genus of fifteen1 species of trees in the Thymelaeaceae, native to southeast Asia. They occur particularly in the rain forests of Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Northern India, the Philippines, Borneo and New Guinea. The trees grow to 6-20 m tall. The leaves are alternate, 5-11 cm long and 2-4 cm broad, with a short acuminate apex and an entire margin. The flowers are yellowish-green, produced in an umbel; the fruit is a woody capsule 2.5-3 cm long.
The genus is best known as the principal producer of the resin-suffused agarwood, especially Aquilaria malaccensis.21 The depletion of wild trees from indiscriminate cutting for agarwood has resulted in the trees being listed and protected as an endangered species.312 Projects are currently underway in some countries in southeast Asia to infect cultivated Aquilaria trees artificially to produce agarwood in a sustainable manner.3
^ abc Ng, 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
^ ab Barden, Angela (2000) Heart of the Matter: Agarwood Use and Trade and CITES Implementation for Aquilaria malaccensis TRAFFIC International, Cambridge, ISBN 1-85850-177-6
^ abc Broad, S. (1995) "Agarwood harvesting in Vietnam" TRAFFIC Bulletin 15:96
