Digital Garden

Pterospermum reticulatum Wight & Arn.

മലയുരം

Family : STERCULIACEAE

Synonym : Pterospermadendron reticulatum Kuntze

Common Names : Malayuram, Malavuram, Malaviriam

Flowering Period : January-November

Distribution : Southern Western Ghats

Habitat : Evergreen and semi-evergreen forests

Uses : Traditional medicine especially in the treatment of wounds, sprains, bone fracture, etc.

Key Characters :

Trees, to 18 m high, bark 10-15 mm thick, brown mottled with green, smooth, exfoliations thin, fibrous; blaze pink-red. Leaves simple, alternate, bifarious; stipules free, lateral, cauducous; petiole 7-10 mm long, stout, tomentose; lamina 8-15 x 4-10 cm, oblong, obovate or panduriform, base obtuse, cordate, or oblique, apex acuminate, margin entire except for the dentate tip, glabrous above, cream coloured mealy tomentose with darker minute stellate hairs beneath, coriaceous; 3-5-ribbed from base, palmate, prominent, lateral nerves 5-6 pairs, pinnate, prominent, intercostae scalariform, prominent. Flowers bisexual, white, in terminal or axillary fascicles; bracteoles laciniate; calyx tubular, 5-partite; lobes lanceolate, recurved on opening, white silky within; petals 5, 2.5 cm long, obovate-oblong, spreading, smaller than calyx, deciduous; staminal column adnate to the gynophore, bearing 5 groups of 3 stamens each between staminodes; staminodes filiform; ovary superior, hairy, placed at the tip of gynophore, 5-celled, ovules 6 in each cell; stigma simple. Fruit a capsule 5-7.5 x 3-3.7 cm, obtusely angled, hard, 5 valved, brown stellate pubescent outside; seeds 4 in each cell, prominently veined, dark brown; wing papery, oblique, falcate.