Lophopetalum wightianum Arn.

വെമ്പാല

Family : CELASTRACEAE

Synonym : No synonyms are recorded for this name.

Common Names : Vembala, Venkadavam, Venkkotta

Flowering Period : December-July

Distribution : Indo-Malesia

Habitat : Evergreen forests and sacred groves

Uses : Avenue plant, timber yielding

Key Characters :

Evergreen trees, to 30 m high, bole buttressed; bark yellowish-brown, mottled with white, smooth, brittle; branchlets terete, brown. Leaves simple, opposite or subopposite, estipulate, 7.5-25 x 3.7-10 cm, elliptic, elliptic-oblong, oblong, ovate or ovate-oblong, apex obtuse or acute, base obtuse or round, margin entire, coriaceous, glabrous; petiole 10-25 mm long, stout, grooved above, glabrous; lateral nerves 6-12 pairs, pinnate, arched towards the margin, prominent, intercostae reticulate, slender, prominent. Flowers bisexual, 15-18 mm across, pinkish to dull red, in lax axillary or terminal dichasial cymes. Calyx broadly flattened at base, 0.5-0.6 cm across; lobes 5, broad, obtuse, very short. Petals 5, 0.5-0.6 cm long, continuous with the disc, orbicular, uneven, clawed, crispate above, persistent, spreading; disc large, flat, 5 lobed. Stamens 5, inserted on the disc; filaments subulate; anthers oblong. Ovary small, immersed in the disc and continuous with it, triquetrous, 3-celled, ovules 4 or more in each cell; style short, stigma capitate. Fruit a capsule 8-10 x 2.5-3.5 cm, 3-angled, trigonous, 3 valved, brown, smooth, pointed at both ends, loculicidal; seeds thin, surrounded by long linear wing, 5 x 1.2 cm, brown, compressed, arillate.