Sterculia guttata Roxb. - STERCULIACEAE

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Vernacular names : Tamil: Thondi, Kawili, KavalamMalayalam: Kavalam, Kithondi, Peenari, Pottakavalam, ThondiKannada: Kudregonatte, Kampirike

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Botanical descriptions Ecology Distribution Literature

Botanical descriptions :

Habit : Deciduous trees, up to 20 m tall.
Trunk\bark : Bark greyish-brown, flaky when mature; blaze pink.
Branchlets : Young branchlets, terete, stellate and tawny tomentose.
Leaves : Leaves simple, alternate, spiral, clustered at twig ends; stipules ensiform, caducous and leaving scar; petiole 2-5 cm long, terete, stellate tawny tomentose, swollen at both ends; lamina 8-24 x 6.5-14 cm, elliptic-oblong to broadly elliptic or ovate, apex shortly acuminate, base rounded to cordate, margin entire, glabrous above, stellately tawny pubescent beneath; midrib canaliculate above; 3-5-nerved at base; secondary_nerves 6-8 pairs; tertiary_nerves obliquely reticulo-percurrent.
Flowers : Inflorescence terminal or axillary racemes, densely stellately tawny pubescent; flowers polygamous, white with pink dots; pedicel 0.3 cm long.
Fruit& seed : Follicles of 1-5, woody, obovoid, 7.6 cm long, bright-red or scarlet, stellately villous, pink or scarlet within; seeds many, ovoid, black.

Ecology :

Along margin of evergreen and in semi-evergreen forests, up to 900 m.

Distribution :

Indomalaysia; in the Western_Ghats- throughout.

Literature :

DC, Prodr. 1: 482. 1824; Gamble, Fl. Madras 1: 106. 1997 (re. ed); Sasidharan, Biodiversity documentation for Kerala- Flowering Plants, part 6: 59. 2004; Saldanha, Fl. Karnataka 1: 237.1984; Cook, Fl. Bombay 1: 124. 1903; Almeida, Fl. Maharashtra 1:145. 1.

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