Sterculia pexa Pierre

The bark fiber is used for making rope or other similar purposes. The seeds are edible after boiling. The timber is good for furniture.

Trees. Branchlets robust. Leaves palmately compound; stipules triangularly lanceolate, ca. 5 mm, pilose; petiole usually 20-23 cm; leaflets 7-9; leaflet blades obovate-lanceolate or narrowly elliptic, 9-23 × 4-6 cm, abaxially densely stellate pubescent, adaxially nearly glabrous, lateral veins 22-44, parallel, base cuneate, margin entire, apex acuminate. Inflorescence clustered at branchlet tips, racemose or paniculate, up to 20 cm. Epicalyx lobes linear-lanceolate, ca. 1 cm. Calyx white, campanulate, ca. 6 mm, divided to 1/2 length, abaxially densely stellate pubescent, lobes triangular, apex acuminate, incurved and apically coherent with each other. Male flower: androgynophore linear, glabrous. Anthers 10-20, capitate. Female flower: ovary globose, 5-locular, densely puberulent. Style very short; stigma 5-branched. Follicle brownish red, ellipsoid and slightly curved to sickle-shaped, 4-9 × 2-4 cm, 3-seeded, abaxially densely puberulent and hispid, adaxially stellate hairy, margin densely ciliate, apex obtuse. Seeds black, oblong, ca. 1.5 cm. Fl. Oct.

Sunny dry slopes, roadsides, cultivated around villages. SW Guangxi, S and SE Yunnan [Laos, Thailand, Vietnam].

Sterculia pexa var. yunnanensis (Hu) H. H. Hsue; S. yunnanensis Hu.