Sterculia alata Roxburgh, Pl. Coromandel 3: 84. 1811 ["1819"]; Pterygota roxburghii Schott & Endlicher, nom. illeg. superfl.

Big trees, up to 30 m tall; bark gray or brown-gray. Branchlets pubescent at first with golden yellow hairs. Stipules subulate, caducous; petiole 5-15 cm; leaf blade cordate or broadly ovate, 13-35 × 10-17 cm, both surfaces glabrescent, base truncate, cordate or rounded, margin nearly entire, apex acute or obtuse. Inflorescence axillary, paniculate, shorter than petiole. Flowers sparse, red; pedicels nearly absent. Calyx campanulate, 17-20 mm, lobes linear-lanceolate, densely puberu-lent. Male flowers: androgynophore cylindric cone-shaped, 1/2 as long as calyx, puberulent. Anthers ca. 20, 3-5 grouped into fascicles on top of androgynophore; undeveloped carpels apparent. Female flowers: androgynophore very short. Ovary globose and puberulent; ovules 40-50 per carpel, in 3 rows; styles 5, curved, pubescent. Follicle woody, compressed globose, ca. 12 cm in diam., puberulent outside, adaxially corklike. Seeds many, oblong, flat, ca. 7 cm including long and wide wing. Fr. Dec.

The place of publication of Pterygota alata is often given as R. Brown in Bennett, Pl. Jav. Rar. 234. 1844, which was published in November 1844 and was thus predated by Brown’s preprint published in June of the same year.

Open forests. S Hainan,Yunnan [Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam].