Petaling occurs in Borneo, Sumatra, Riau pocket islands, Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore. The plant is very tolerant of shade and observed to be fairy common but scattered as understorey tree where grows on lowland up to 950 m above sea level. In the forest, Petaling regenerates sparsely, but can be plentiful under favorable conditions. The tree is commonly having vegetative reproduction by means of coppice shoots and root suckers. It flowers almost throughout the year. Although the tree may produce fruit the whole year, Petaling has been observed having mast fruiting years.

With contrast report of notoriously slow growing tree, Petaling may reach to 50 m tall. The girth of Petaling shows to be faster when planted out its natural habitat such as at arboretum of Forest Research Institute of Malaysia where noted grow at 1 cm mean annual diameter increment. Other study reported the tree attained a mean height of 21 m within 33 years.

Petaling is known to grow well under canopy, the tree is suitable for enrichment planting in side the forest as well as to be mixed with other plants in Agrosystem plantation. On the other hand, its slow growing nature and no secondary product cause Petaling is not preferable to be planted in agroforestry.

Petaling well performs on a variety of soils ranging from clay-rich, loamy or sandy, usually well-drained soils, laterite, and is only rarely found in periodically inundated locations. Trees are not resistant to fire where recorded about 90% mortality after a fire in East Kalimantan.

Ochanostachys amentacea (Olacaceae)