Clustertree

The mature fruits are astringent, stomachic and carminative. They are eaten by locals. The wood is often employed in making cart frames, ploughs, box, fittings, match boxes and cheap furniture. A decoction of the bark is used as a wash for wounds. The tree is planted for shade in gardens.

Trees, 25-30 m tall, d.b.h. 60-90 cm; monoecious. Bark grayish brown, smooth. Branchlets, young leaf blades, and figs with bent hairs or densely covered with white soft pubescence. Branchlets brown. Stipules ovate-lanceolate, 1.5-2 cm, membranous, pubescent. Leaves alternate; petiole 2-3 cm; leaf blade elliptic-obovate, elliptic, or narrowly elliptic, 10-14 × 3-4.5(-7) cm, ± leathery, abaxially pale green, pubescent when young, glabrescent, and ± scabrous, adaxially dark green and glabrous, base cuneate to obtuse, margin entire, apex acuminate to obtuse; basal lateral veins 2, secondary veins 4-8 on each side of midvein. Figs in a tumorlike aggregate on short branchlets of old stem, occasionally axillary on leafy shoot or on older leafless branchlets, paired, reddish orange when mature, pear-shaped, 2-2.5 cm in diam., basally attenuated into a stalk, apical pore navel-like, flat; peduncle ca. 1 cm; involucral bracts triangular-ovate. Male, gall, and female flowers within same fig. Male flowers: near apical pore, sessile; calyx lobes 3 or 4; stamens 2. Gall and female flowers: pedicellate; calyx lobes linear, apex 3- or 4-toothed; style lateral; stigma clavate. Fl. May-Jul.

A small to large, 10-20 (- 30) m tall, evergreen or occasionally deciduous tree. Trunk up to 3 m in circumference, with spreading brand with or without aerial roots, bark whitish to pinkish-brawn, smooth, young twigs with fine white pubescence, soon glabrous. Leaves with 2.6 (-7.5) cm long, grooved minutely hairy, brownish-scurfy petiole; lamina ovate-lanceolate to ± elliptic-lanceolate, (5-) 6-18 (- 20) cm long, (2.5-) 3-10 (-l.2) cm broad, 3 from broad to narrowly cuneate, ± oblique base, margin entire to ± used obtuse or subacute to occasionally ± acuminate at apex, glabrous on both sides; lateral nerves 4-7 (-8) pairs, bulging beneath, intercostals present; stipules triangular-ovate, 12-15 mm long, 4-5 mm wide, acute-acuminate, brown, sub-persistent; cystoliths present only on the lower side. Hypanthodia on 8-40 long peduncles, borne in large clusters from tubercles on the main trunk and main leafless branches (cauliflorous), subpyriform-globose, c.1.5-2.5 cm long and broad, green, subtended by 3, broadly triangular-ovate brownish brads, bracts, apical orifice ± sunken, closed by 5-6, pink-brown bracts without internal bristles. Male flowers: sessile, ostiolar in 23-whorls; 3(-4), united, lobes dentate-lacerate, red; stamens usually 2, pistillode present. Female flowers: sessile or subsessile. sepals as in male; ovary substipitate, with lateral, 2.3 long, glabrous style, stigma simple. Gall flowers pedicellate, dispersed among female. Figs depressed subglobose or pyriform, 2.54 cm in, diameter red, usually streaked. Seeds lenticular, c. 1 mm long.

S Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan [India, Indonesia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; Australia].

Pakistan, Nepal, India, Ceylon, S.W. China (Yunnan), Indo-China, Malaysia, Australia.

Distribution: Pakistan, India, Sri Lanaka, Bangle Dish, S. Chins, Burma, Thailand, Malayasia, Indonesia to N. Australia.

300 m

Fl. & Fr. Per.: March-May & September-November.

Moist areas, beside rivers and streams, occasionally in streams; 100-1700 m.