Alangium chinense (Lour.) Harms

The plant is sometimes cultivated in gardens for its beautiful foliage and sweet scented flowers.

Medium to large sized unarmed tree, 10-25 m tall, with grey bark and purplish brown, pubescent to glabrescent young shoots. Leaves ovate to broadly ovate, or somewhat deltoid with oblique base, truncate or shallow-deeply cordate; blade 6-15 cm long, 4.5-15 cm broad, 4-6-costate with divergent reticulate venation, tufted-hairy at the junction of veins and veinlets, margin entire or palmately lobed, lamina and lobes acuminate, pubescent to glabrescent with age; petiole 2.3-5 cm long, dorsally grooved, pubescent. Inflorescence of biparous pedunculate cymes; peduncle pubescent or glabrescent. Buds oblong-cylindric, 10-12 mm long. Flowers c. 1 cm across; pedicel 5-6 mm long, pubescent; bracts 3-7 mm long. Calyx tube infundibuliform, 10-toothed, c. 2.5 mm long. Petals 6, linear-oblong, 9-10 mm long, 1-1.5 mm broad, villous on inside at the base, deciduous. Stamens 6, free, anthers 8-9 mm long, filaments very short, villous at the base. Ovary globose, c. 1.5 mm long, puberulous; style terminal, 8 mm long, upwardly clavate, pilose, stigma inconspicuously 2-3-lobed. Drupe elliptic-ovoid, 7-9 mm long, 4-6 mm wide, truncate at the base and apex, glabrescent, somewhat ribbed, fleshy, dark purple.

Shrubs or small trees, 3-5 m tall. Branchlets pubescent when young, glabrescent. Petiole reddish, 4-6 cm; leaf blade ovate or orbicular to cordate, 8-20 × 5-12 cm, abaxially tufted pubescent at axils of veins, adaxially glabrous, strongly 3-5-veined at base, base usually oblique, occasionally rounded or subrounded, or triangular, margin entire or with few shallow lobes, apex acuminate. Inflorescences axillary cymes, 3-15-flowered. Flowers ca. 2 cm. Calyx lobes 4-7, shortly dentate. Petals valvate, 6(-8), lanceolate, 1-1.5 cm. Stamens 6-8, ca. as many as petals, glabrous. Drupe ovoid, 5-7 mm, seed 1. Fl. May-Jul, Sep-Oct, fr. Jul-Nov.

Tropical Africa, Himalaya (Nepal to Bhutan), Burma, east to China, Malaysia.

Distribution: Montane regions in W. Pakistan, North India, Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, China, Philippines, Sunda Isles, Japan, Belgium and Portuguese Congo, N. Rhodesia, Angola, Cameroon and Fernando Po. Islands.

Anhui, Chongqing, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, S Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Bhutan, India, Nepal; E Africa, SE Asia].

300-2400 m

Fl. Per. May-July

Forests, forest margins, exposed places; below 2500 m.