Sterculia striatiflora - Grooved-Flower Sterculia

Grooved-Flower Sterculia is a shrub, 1-1.5 m tall, bark greenish grey. Leaves are 15-25 cm x 5-8 cm, simple; blade elliptic to inverted-lanceshaped, entire sometimes slightly wavy, with a tail-tapering, base wedge-shaped, papery, only sparsely star-shaped-hairy above and thinly below mainly on nerves. Leaf-stalks are 2-3.5 cm, thickened just below the blade. Flowers are borne in panicles in leaf-axils, 7-10 cm , male and female flowers on same inflorescence, lax, drooping, branches capillary. Flower-stalks are short, 3-5 x 0.8-1 mm long, capillary. Bracts are subulate, 3-3.5 x 1-1.5 mm, light green, persistent; flower-cluster-stalk, axis, leaf-stalk and bracts densely hairy. Flowers are drooping, 8-10 mm in diameter; sepal-cup petal-like, pale yellow to dark pink, greenish towards the base, color becomes darker with age after blooming, tube 4-5 mm, funnel-shaped, tepals 5, lanceshaped with margins reflexed outward, joining together at the tips, 10-13 mm long, both surfaces densely hairy, free on over matured flowers after the release of pollen grains. Grooved-Flower Sterculia is found in Arunachal Pradesh and Myanmar. Flowering: February-April.