Borneol Camphor

Borneol camphor, or Borneo camphor, is the camphor of Dryobalanops aromatica, a tall tree of the dipterocarp family, Dipterocarpaceae, native to Sumatra, peninsular Malaysia and Borneo and also called Malay or Sumatran camphor. It is an emergent tree of mixed dipterocarp forest on deep, sandy soils, reaching 65 or even 75 metres, and is one of the trees known for crown shyness. Its heavy timber is sold as kapur, and the species is assessed as vulnerable. Its camphor drew early Arab traders to Borneo, where it was once worth more than gold and went into incense and perfume; Marco Polo named Fansuri, the present-day Barus in Sumatra, as the source of the finest. Grieve describes the camphor forming as solid masses in long cavities in the heartwood of older trees, found only by cutting into the trunk, while younger trees hold an oil thought to be an early stage of it. She adds that it was used chiefly in funeral rites, and bought dear by the Chinese for embalming because it is less volatile than ordinary camphor, but was then unknown in Europe and America. The French chemist Charles Gerhardt named the compound borneol after it in 1842, and the tree is better known today as a source of borneol than of true camphor, a confusion with the laurel-family camphor tree noted since Burkill. It remains among the raw materials of incense.