Sterculia villosa Roxb.Family: Malvaceae
Synonyms: Sterculia armata Mast., Sterculia lantsangensis Hu, Sterculia ornata Wall. ex Kurz
- Common name: Hairy Sterculia, Elephant rope tree
- Assamese: Udal
- Bengali: Udal উদাল
- Chinese: 榔皮树
- Hindi: Katira, God-gudala, Udal
- Kannada: Bilidale, savaya, anenar
- Khasi: Dieng star
- Malayalam: വക്ക vakka, cavali, chavuthi, shavoodee
- Manipuri: hei-rit
- Marathi: सरडोळ Sardol, kardul, gulkhandar, saykhand
- Mizo: khaupui
- Nepali: ओदाने odane
- Oriya: khaupui, kodali
- Tamil: ஓடல் odal, kottaithanuku, muruthan, vakkainar
- Telugu: kummaripoliki, gugai
Gum laxative. Decoction of bark given for constipation, a paste with ginger applied on hydrocele; paste rubbed over the body to check fever; bark juice with Pongamia pinnata oil used on ulcers. Root tonic, root made into a paste with table sugar and given to children in blood dysentery. Seeds paste with ginger applied on painful swelling of scrotum. Veterinary medicine, gum employed. [CRC World Dictionary of Medicinal and Poisonous Plants]
Description: Deciduous trees, to 10 m high, bark pale-brown, smooth with small corky warts; blaze red; branches horizontal and whorled. Leaves simple, palmately 5-7 lobed, alternate, crowded at the end of branchlets; stipules free, lateral, cauducous; petioles 7-25 cm long, stout, swollen at base, pubescent; lamina 6.5-45 x 9-45 cm, lobes oblong-ovate or ovate, base cordate, apex acuminate or caudate-acuminate, margin entire, glabrous above and downy beneath, coriaceous; 5-7-ribbed from the base, palmate, prominent, lateral nerves 4-8, parallel, prominent, intercostae subscalariform-reticulate, prominent. Flowers polygamous, cream-coloured, 10-12 mm across, in long drooping panicles; calyx campanulate, pink, downy outside, glabrous within, divided to the middle, lobes 5, oblong-lanceolate, acute; petals absent; male flowers: staminal column recurved; anthers 10, along the rim of staminal column, column hairy at apex; female flowers; carpels 5, free, strigose with stellate hairs; gynophore stout, cylindric; style stout, hairy, deflexed; staminodes on a ring beneath the ovary. Fruit an aggregate of 2-7 follicles, each 3.5-7.5 cm long, brown, tomentose, seeds many, black, smooth.
Description: Deciduous trees, to 10 m high, bark pale-brown, smooth with small corky warts; blaze red; branches horizontal and whorled. Leaves simple, palmately 5-7 lobed, alternate, crowded at the end of branchlets; stipules free, lateral, cauducous; petioles 7-25 cm long, stout, swollen at base, pubescent; lamina 6.5-45 x 9-45 cm, lobes oblong-ovate or ovate, base cordate, apex acuminate or caudate-acuminate, margin entire, glabrous above and downy beneath, coriaceous; 5-7-ribbed from the base, palmate, prominent, lateral nerves 4-8, parallel, prominent, intercostae subscalariform-reticulate, prominent. Flowers polygamous, cream-coloured, 10-12 mm across, in long drooping panicles; calyx campanulate, pink, downy outside, glabrous within, divided to the middle, lobes 5, oblong-lanceolate, acute; petals absent; male flowers: staminal column recurved; anthers 10, along the rim of staminal column, column hairy at apex; female flowers; carpels 5, free, strigose with stellate hairs; gynophore stout, cylindric; style stout, hairy, deflexed; staminodes on a ring beneath the ovary. Fruit an aggregate of 2-7 follicles, each 3.5-7.5 cm long, brown, tomentose, seeds many, black, smooth.
