The tree usually grows up to 75 meters tall but specimens up to 88 meters tall have been reported. The straight, cylindrical bole is usually up to 100cm in diameter, though specimens up to 270cm have been recorded.
Like most tall rainforest trees, they have huge buttress roots to support their weight. This is because the majority of the nutrients in rainforest soil are very near the surface, making large spreading roots more effective than deep ones. The tree has steep, thick buttresses up to 12 meters high.
Habitat of the tree: Lowland primary rainforest, mainly at moist locations along rivers, in valleys and lower slopes of hills, restricted to north of Selangor and Pahang (Kuala Lumpur-Kuantan latitude) on Peninsular Malaysia.
Wild bees often build their nests in the tops of this tree, and so local people commonly harvest honey from them. For this reason, and also because the trees are hard to fell, the trees are traditionally left standing when the forest is cleared.
Koompassia excelsa tree
