143
Pterospermum
diversifolium Blume
Synonym : Pterospermum
glabrescens Wight & Arn.
Family
: Sterculiaceae
Local Names
: Pambaram
Flowering
and fruiting period:
December – April
Distribution: Indo-Malaysia
Habitat: Evergreen and semi-evergreen forests
IUCN
status:
Data Deficient
Endemic: No
Uses: Timber yielding. The bark and flowers are charred and
combined with the glands of Mallotus
philippinensis in the treatment of smallpox in order to cause suppuration
Key
Characters:
Trees, to 18 m high, bark surface brown
mottled with green and white. Leaves simple, alternate, distichous,
rectangular-oblong, margin entire, glabrous above, silvery pubescent beneath.
Flowers bisexual, white, axillary, solitary or geminate. Cayx tubular; lobes
10-13. Petals 5, oblong, white, deciduous. Staminal column adnate to the
gynophore. Ovary superior, 5-celled, ovules many. Fruit a capsule, oblong,
5-angled, smooth, winged at one end.
