Anathondi

It is a handsome tree planted for shade in gardens and along roadside. Seeds are said to be edible and in Sylhet these are used as a substitute for opium.

The place of publication of Pterygota alata is often given as R. Brown in Bennett, Pl. Jav. Rar. 234. 1844, which was published in November 1844 and was thus predated by Brown’s preprint published in June of the same year.

A tall tree. Young parts with ferruginous pubescence. Leaves with 3-10 cm long petiole, crowded towards the ends of branches; lamina broadly ovate-cordate, 10-25 cm long, 7-15 cm broad, undulate, glabrous, acute or shortly acuminate. Raceme small, few-flowered. Flowers 1-1.5 cm across, pedicel 2-3 mm long. Sepals (4-)5(-7), nearly free, linear-lanceolate or elliptic, 1.2-1.5 cm long, 3-4 mm broad, fleshy, somewhat cucullate, densely ferruginous pubescent outside, sparsely pubescent and purple with red streaks within (seen in fresh material only). Anthers in male flowers united into 1-2 mm broad head on 4-6 mm long staminal column; in bisexual flowers sessile anthers are arranged in clusters of 4 or 5 in the sinuses formed by the carpels. Carpels 5;ovaries sessile, 2-3 mm long, pubescent; style recurved. Follicles large, woody, 7-12 cm in diameter, obliquely globose. Seeds c. 40 per follicle, oblong, compressed, in 2 rows, winged.

Big trees, up to 30 m tall; bark gray or brown-gray. Branchlets pubescent at first with golden yellow hairs. Stipules subulate, caducous; petiole 5-15 cm; leaf blade cordate or broadly ovate, 13-35 × 10-17 cm, both surfaces glabrescent, base truncate, cordate or rounded, margin nearly entire, apex acute or obtuse. Inflorescence axillary, paniculate, shorter than petiole. Flowers sparse, red; pedicels nearly absent. Calyx campanulate, 17-20 mm, lobes linear-lanceolate, densely puberu-lent. Male flowers: androgynophore cylindric cone-shaped, 1/2 as long as calyx, puberulent. Anthers ca. 20, 3-5 grouped into fascicles on top of androgynophore; undeveloped carpels apparent. Female flowers: androgynophore very short. Ovary globose and puberulent; ovules 40-50 per carpel, in 3 rows; styles 5, curved, pubescent. Follicle woody, compressed globose, ca. 12 cm in diam., puberulent outside, adaxially corklike. Seeds many, oblong, flat, ca. 7 cm including long and wide wing. Fr. Dec.

Distribution: A native of south west India, Sikkim, Assam, Andamans, Burma and Bangla Desh (Chittagong, Sylhet); cultivated in gardens in Pakistan.

Fl.Per.: February-March.

Open forests. S Hainan,Yunnan [Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam].

Sterculia alata Roxburgh, Pl. Coromandel 3: 84. 1811 ["1819"]; Pterygota roxburghii Schott & Endlicher, nom. illeg. superfl.