by Wilfred Calder-Potts
The Malayan Mountain Ash (also known as Weinmannia Fraxinea, or Weinmannia Blumei), is a tree indigenous to the Cameron Highlands. It is often found on disturbed ground, especially on slopes. For this reason it was chosen as a tree suitable for planting in the REACH reforestation area next to the Biodiversity Centre. It was also chosen to increase the biodiversity of the reforestation area.
The tree has a few distinguishable features which are useful for identification. The easiest is the leaves (shown on Figure 1). These are small, oval shaped, and grow out symmetrically, 180 degrees from each other. The young leaves are red in colour. A particularly individual and noticeable feature is the ‘stipules’ at the base of the stem. These are a pair of semi-circular leaves as shown in Figure 1. The bark of the tree is grey to dark brown. The tree can grow up to 40 m tall. The trunk tends to be narrow (60-120cm) and straight. When in bloom, the inflorescences (flower systems) come in pairs of 1-3 long finger like extensions, with many small white petals.
Due to the trees preferred environment, they are normally found on slopes close to a road, in secondary forest or recently cleared areas. 
They are very rarely found deep in primary rainforest. A good technique for finding the trees was to walk along a road or path, and look for large ‘parent’ trees. 
Looking on the ground close to these trees would then often reveal saplings which could be taken. So far the only technique for getting the trees to the reforestation site was transplanting. This involved removing the sapling trees by simply pulling them up (digging by hand around the base of the tree and teasing the roots out also helped to avoid damage). These trees were then put into bags along with a mix of gravel, soil, and fertiliser.
After a few days these trees were then planted in the reforestation area (along with the soil mix). At the time of writing the outcome of this method is unknown; the trees were only planted a few days ago (about 27 in total). The trees did seem to deteriorate after a few days in the bags though, so it is very possible that planting them straight into the reforestation area would improve their chances of survival. Note that the roots of the tree do not go very deep; they seem to spread laterally instead, and so it seems that a shallow, wide hole is preferable when planting.
In order to propagate the tree, methods such as taking ‘cuttings’ or ‘layering’ could be useful (for more information contact Seng Yee, a REACH committee member and holder of a Master’s degree in Agriculture). Background reading suggests that the tree can self propagate by runners (through its roots) and possible evidence of this was seen when a single tree with 4 separate trunks connected by roots was found. Note that all of these propagation methods will produce a genetic copy of the original tree, and so transplanting should also be continued to maintain genetic diversity.
If any additional help is needed beyond contacting Dr Liau or Seng Yee, I can be contacted at oneandonlywilf@gmail.com
Here are some useful links:
http://portal.cybertaxonomy.org/flora-malesiana/node/9537
http://www.chm.frim.gov.my/backup/TFSS.vol4_5_6.pdf
http://www.iosrjen.org/Papers/vol3_issue5%20(part-1)/A03510106.pdf