Scientific Name
Other Names
Life Form
Synonyms
Family
Fodder - The foliage is used as fodder. Food - The powdered bark is mixed with corn flour and baked.
Bhutan, China, India, Nepal
Subtropical and lower temperate forest at an altitude of of 1000-3000 m.
Instead of nectar, the flowers produce large quantities of pollen and rely on bees for pollination.
Deciduous trees reach up to 25 m tall.
Twigs irregularly lenticellate, glabrous, except for appressed grey sericeous young parts.
Petioles scarcely swollen at base, 1.5–3.5 cm, minutely appressed sericeous, glabrescent with stipular scar 0.7–2.4 cm. Leaves elliptic or oblong to narrowly ovate or obovate, 9–18 × 3–7.5 cm, base cuneate to rounded, apex acute-acuminate, secondary veins 10–14 pairs, glabrous and shiny above, glabrous or minutely sericeous below.
It produces terminal yellow flowers 2-3 cm in diameter. Short, sericeous axillary shoots (1-5 mm) support the flowers. Ovoid buds open to reveal 9-12 tepals arranged in a somewhat differentiated outer and inner series. Outer tepals are obovate, measuring 2.5-3 cm long by 0.7-1 cm wide. Inner tepals are slightly narrower, measuring 2-2.2 cm long by 0.6-0.8 cm wide.
Fruit a lax spike of carpels, 3–6 cm, on the somewhat elongated gynophore, the follicles dehiscing dorsally. Seeds 1 or 3 per carpel, red, spheroidal.
Flowering: June – October
Fruiting: August – November