Firmiana colorata (Roxb.) R. Br.

മലമ്പരത്തി

Family : STERCULIACEAE

Synonym :

Sterculia rubicunda Wall. ex Mast.

Common Names : Malamparathi, Kleeni, Kiliyani, Coloured sterculia

Flowering Period : January-June

Distribution : Indo-Malesia and China

Habitat : Semi-evergreen and moist deciduous forests

Uses : A fiber is obtained from the bark. It is used in rope making

Key Characters :

Deciduous trees, to 25 m high, bole buttressed, bark 20-30 mm thick, grey-black, rough, longitudinally fissured; outer bark dead, corky, inner bark fibrous, creamy white, with radial narrow triangular rays; blaze creamy-yellow, fibrous. Leaves simple, palmately 3-5 lobed, alternate, clustered at the tips of branchlets; stipules free, deciduous; petiole 10-30 cm long, slender, pubescent, swollen at base; lamina 10-36 x 8-29 cm, base cordate or subcordate, lobes oblong, lobe apex acuminate, caudate-acuminate, margin entire, glabrous, coriaceous; 3-8-ribbed from base, palmate, lateral nerves pinnate, prominent, intercostae reticulate, prominent. Flowers bisexual, scarlet, in terminal panicled racemes, clothed with orange-red tomentum; calyx 2 cm long, tubular, covered with stellate tomentum, lobes 5, short; petals absent, gynandrophore slender, bearing about 30 sessile anthers at the rim; carpels 5, superior, free, flask shaped, glabrous, 2 ovules in each carpel; styles short, recurved; stigma acute. Fruit aggregate of 5 follicles, each 6-7.5 cm long, membranous, greenish-pink; seeds 2, ovoid, yellow.