Sterculia L.

Tree 3–24 m tall; bole cylindrical, sometimes with fluted buttresses; bark rough, grey or greyish brown, often deeply fissured; slash pale pink or pale orange, quickly becoming deep orange, exudate clear; ultimate branchlets rough and grey, 5–10 mm thick, the apex rusty tomentose. Leaf-blade elliptic-oblong or slightly obovate, (6.5–)11–21(–30) cm long, (4.7–)6.5–13(–16) cm wide, apex rounded to acuminate, base truncate, rounded, or subcordate, texture papery or leathery, glabrous, sometimes glossy above, tomentose (sometimes tomentellous in shade or on sucker growth) with red-brown 5–6-armed stellate hairs beneath; petiole terete, slightly swollen at base and tip, (2.5–)5–7.5 cm long, 1–2 mm wide, tomentellous with pale brown stellate hairs; stipules caducous. Inflorescences borne with the leaves, 2–10 per stem, each inflorescence 10–14(–22) cm long, 2.5–5(–8) cm wide, 2–3 mm thick at the base, with 20–25(–30) branches; pedicels 1–4.5 mm long. Flowers with perianth campanulate, rose-pink, pinkish or brownish purple, rarely green tinged with red, 4–7(–8) mm long, 3–5 mm wide, divided into 5 acute lobes 3–4 mm long, 1.5 mm wide, cohering at the apex, margins reflexed, outer surface with a mixture of short, wide, flaccid, ± appressed, colourless hairs and fine, pale brown stellate hairs; inner surface glabrous apart from the extreme base and the lobes which densely covered in long, stout pointed, patent white or purple hairs. Fruit with 3–5 follicles, follicles ellipsoid, 5.7–10 cm long, 2.5 cm wide, dehiscing flat, then 3.6–8.9 cm long, 4–8 cm wide, rostrum rather short, blunt, 3–5(–10) mm long, stipe stout, (0.5–)1(–2) cm long, pericarp thick, woody, 2–3 mm thick, outer surface red, then rusty brown, tomentellous, inner surface yellow-brown, stiffly and thickly tomentose; seeds glossy black, ellipsoid, 10–13(–18) mm long, 7–9(–12) mm wide, hilum white, terminal, elliptic, 1–2 mm long, with a small, globose, orange aril 0.5–1 mm wide on a short margin; seeds sessile, leaving a white scar on the pericarp wall.

Source: http://plants.jstor.org/flora/ftea009265

Tropical West Africa, Tanzania, Katanga, Angola.

Widespread from Guinea to Cameroon, Eastward to Sudan and Rwanda and south to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola and Zambia

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