Sterculia alata

Scientific Classification

Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnolipsida
Order: Malvales
Family: Malvaceae
Genus: Sterculia Syn Pterygota
Species: S.alata
Scientific Name: Sterculia alata, Syn: Pterygota alata

Common names
English : Buddha’s coconut tree Hindi: Goldar Marathi: करवटी Karvati

Discription

Deciduous trees, to 35 m high, bole straight, buttressed; bark, greyish with light and dark patches, smooth; blaze creamy yellow; young parts covered with dense golden brown stellate-pubescence. Leaves simple, alternate clustered towards the end of branches; stipule free, lateral, cauducous; petiole 3.5-10 cm long, slender, glabrous; lamina 10-30 x 7.5-20 cm, ovate or orbicular, base cordate, subcordate or truncate, apex caudate-acuminate or acuminate, margin entire, glabrous, coriaceous, 5-7 nerved from base, palmate, lateral nerves 3-6 pairs, pinnate, prominent, intercostae reticulate, slender, prominent. Flowers unisexual or polygamous, to 2 cm long, brownish, in rusty brown tomentose panicles from leafless nodes; calyx 5-partite, lobes 1 cm long, curved out, tomentose outside; male flowers: staminal column cylindric bearing 4-5 phalanges of about 5 anthers each; female flowers: staminodes round the base of the ovary; carpels 5, free, superior, ovules many in each; style short, recurved; stigma 2-lobed. Fruit of 3-5 follicles, 10-12.5 cm long, obovoid oblique; seeds 25-30, 5-7.5 cm long, oblong, brown winged.