Bread Flower

The bark is chewed for fixing teeth. The latex is of medicinal importance and is applied in sores and wounds.

Bark smooth, yellowish-white covered with grey lenticlse; stem with milky latex. Leaves 5-12 x 2.5 cm, elliptic oblong lanceolate, acute or acuminate, cuneate at the base, glabrous; petiole 1-1.5 cm long. Infloresence axillary of 3-many flowered lax cyme; peduncle short, glabrous or pubescent. Flower white, fragrant, c. 1.5 cm across, bracts linear, or lanceolate, acute, pubescent. Pedicel slender, pubescent, upto to 1 cm, mostly recurved. Calyx pubescent tube short, lobes c. 2.5 mm long, acuminate or acute. Corolla-tube narrow, cylinderical, 4-5 mm long, hairy within, pubescent outside, lobes orbicular or obovate, obtuse, 6-8 x 6-10 mm. Stamens included, inserted at the mouth of the tube, anther united to form a sharp cone-like structure, c. 2 mm long, connective horse-shoe shaped. Disc lobes ciliate, ovary hairy, stigma subulate. Fruit somewhat beaked, 10-15 x 3-5 cm.

Shrubs climbing, often twining, to 10 m. Bark dirty whitish gray; flowering branchlets, slender, grayish pubescent. Petiole 0.2-2 cm; leaf blade elliptic to narrowly so, 2-15 X 0.8-6 cm, densely pubescent on both surfaces, base cuneate or rounded; lateral veins 5-12 pairs. Cymes di- or trichasial; peduncle 0.5-3 cm. Flowers fragrant; pedicel 0.5-2.5 cm. Sepals ovate or narrowly elliptic, 2-7 mm. Corolla white or pale yellow, limb 1.4-2.5 cm in diam., tube 5-10 mm, lobes rounded at apex. Staminal glands yellow, globose; disc shorter than ovary, apex pilose. Follicles oblong, 8-14 X 1.5-3.5 cm. Seeds ellipsoid, 9-10 mm, coma 3-4 cm. Fl. Mar-Jul. 2n = 22.

Himalaya (Kumaun to Bhutan), S. China, Burma, Indo-China.

Distribution: Native in India, Burma, Ceylon and Kashmir commonly cultivated in the plains in Pakistan.

Hainan [Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam].

150-1000 m

Fl. Per.: December-April.

Forests, thickets, streambanks; 0-2700 m.

Peltanthera solanacea Roth, Nov. Pl. Sp. 132. 1821; Vallaris heynei Sprengel; V. solanacea (Roth) K. Schumann.