Sterculia villosa Roxb.

A coarse fibre obtained from the inner bark is used in making ropes, cordage and bags. Trunk yields a transparent gum and root is occasionally eaten.

A medium sized, monoecious tree. Leaves with 25-40cm long petiole; lalmina palmately 5-7-lobed, 20-40 cm long and broad, glabrescent above, tomentose below, cordate at the base, lobes somewhat oblong or obovate entire or 3-fid, acuminate-cuspidate. Panicles 15-30 cm long, rusty pubescent, pendulous. Flowers unisexual, pedicel4-8 mm long, bracteole filiform, caducous. Calyx campanulate, 5-partite, 6-10 mm long, 10-15 mm across, yellow with pinkish throat, lobes lanceolate, 4-6 mm long, patent, acute. Staminal column 4-5 mm long, recurved, glabrous, anthers 10. Carpels 5; ovary globose, strigose, 5-loculed, many-ovuled; gynophore 2-3 mm long; style recurved. Follicles 5, sessile, 4-6 cm long, coriaceous, rusty pubescent, many-seeded, red when ripe. Seeds oblong, smooth, black.

Trees; bark gray-white. Branchlets robust, with leaf scars, brown stellate pubescent when young. Leaves simple; stipules lanceolate, ca. 1 cm; petiole robust, ca. 16 cm, pilose; leaf blade palmately 3-7-lobed, 17-22 cm, abaxially densely yellow-brown stellate tomentose, adaxially sparsely pubescent, base broadly cordate, central lobe broadly ovate, ca. 8 × 8 cm at base, apex caudate. Inflorescence subterminal on branchlets, paniculate, densely ferruginous stellate tomentose. Calyx yellow, campanulate, ca. 1 cm, tube ca. 4 mm, abaxially pubescent, adaxially glabrous, lobes lanceolate, apex acuminate, ca. 6 mm, spreading outward. Male flowers: androgynophore curved, glabrous. Stamens 10. Female flowers: ovary globose. Style curved downward, hairy. Follicles narrowly ellipsoid, 3-5 cm, both surfaces densely ferruginous villous, apex shortly beaked. Seeds black, oblong. Fl. Feb, fr. Apr-Oct.

Tropical Himalaya (Punjab to Nepal), N. India.

Distribution: India and Bangla Desh; cultivated elsewhere.

SW Yunnan [Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand].

300-600 m

Fl.Per.: December-March

Mixed forests in gullies, also cultivated near villages; 500-1500 m.

Sterculia armata Masters; S. lantsangensis Hu; S. ornata Wallich ex Kurz.