Kamala Tree

Shrubs or small trees, 2-15 m tall. Branchlets, petiole, and inflorescences yellow-brownish stellate-tomentose. Stipules small, ca. 1 mm; petiole 2-9 cm; leaf blade ovate to lanceolate, 5-20 × 3-6 cm, leathery, adaxially glabrescent, abaxially gray-yellow tomentulose and sparsely red glandular-scaly, base cuneate or obtuse, with 2-4 basal glands, margin subentire, apex acuminate; basal veins 3. Male inflorescences unbranched, 5-10 cm; bracts triangular, ca. 1 mm. Male flowers 1-5-fascicled; pedicel 1-2 mm; calyx lobes 3 or 4, oblong, ca. 2 mm, tomentulose; stamens 15-30. Female inflorescences 3-8 cm, 10-15 cm in fruit; bracts triangular, ca. 1 mm. Female flowers: pedicel ca. 2 mm; calyx lobes 3-5, subovate, ca. 3 mm, tomentose; ovary tomentose and red glandular-scaly; styles 3, 3-4 mm, plumose. Capsule subglobose, 8-10 mm in diam., (2 or)3-locular, covered with a red glandular-scaly layer. Seeds subglobose, ca. 4 mm in diam., black. Fl. Mar-May, fr. Jun-Aug.

Himalaya (Kumaun to Bhutan), India, Ceylon, Indo-China, China, Malaysia, Australia, Polynesia.

Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; N Australia].

150-1800 m

Mountain slopes or valleys, limestone hills or river valleys, forests; 300-1600 m.