Manihot glaziovii - Ceara Rubber Tree

Ceara Rubber Tree is a tree or shrub, up to 14 m tall; bark strongly peeling glossy brown, latex abundant; branches herbaceous, hairless. Stipules are lanceshaped, 4-6 mm, gray-green, jagged; leaf-stalk 4-25 cm, with many longitudinal grooves, peltate, inserted at least 5 mm from margin. Leaves are palmately 3-7-lobed, 10-30 x 15-25 cm, papery or membranous, lobes obovate, elliptic, rhomboid, or spoon-shaped, 7-10 x 3.5-7 cm, margins entire, tip pointed to shortly tapering. Flowers are borne in panicles 7-9 cm; bracts lanceshaped, about 2.5 mm. Male flowers: sepal-cup 9-11 mm, 5-lobed, sepals oblong, about 5 × 2-3 mm, tip blunt, hairless inside; disk shallowly cup-shaped, 10-lobed, hairless; anthers oblong, about 2.5 mm. Female flowers: sepal-cup 10-11 mm, 5-lobed; ovary ellipsoidal, hairless. Capsules are spherical or nearly so, about 2 cm in diameter, warty, wingless, wrinkled. Leaves are eaten as a vegetable. The leaves contain hydrocyanic acid, which is toxic, but it is destroyed by heat and so the cooked leaves are safe to eat. Root is a famine food, it is eaten in times of food scarcity. The root is rich in starch but it is hard and woody. Ceara Rubber Tree is native to NE Brazil, cultivated in South India. Flowering: September-October.