Kydia calycina Roxb. (MALVACEAE)
Common names
Kannada: Bellaka, Nayibende.
Malayalam: Velukku.
Tamil: Vendai.
Telugu: Potri.
Description: Trees, up to 20 m tall with white soft bark; young branches densely pubescent with minute greyish stellate hairs. Leaves alternate, ovate-orbicular with angular lobes, up to 17 x 15 cm, rounded or subcordate at base, acute or obtuse at apex, entire or irregularly serrate, stellate – pubescent, glaucous beneath; petioles up to 7 cm long. Flowers polygamous, in axillary or terminal densely stellate – pubescent, panicles, white or pink. Epicalyx segments 4-6, oblong – spathulate or obovate, stellate pubescent, persistent. Calyx cup-shaped, 5-lobed, lobes ovate acute, stellate-pubescent, persistent. Petals 5, spathulate, emarginated, fimbriate. Stamens numerous, pistillode absent adnate to staminal column. Staminal column 5-branched at apex in male flowers. In female flowers branches of staminal column short with imperfect anthers. The ovary is ovoid and 3-locular, featuring three styles with peltate stigmas. The fruit is a hard, subglobose capsule, approximately 5 mm in diameter, and exhibits a depressed shape. The seeds are brown, reniform to ellipsoid, measuring about 3 x 2 mm.
Flowering: September – November.
Fruiting: November – February.
Distribution: India: Throughout in subtropical evergreen forests from 600 to 1200 m.Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and China.
Uses:
- Wood white, soft, used in building construction, and to a limited extent in making of matchboxes, splints, light packing-cases, agricultural implements, oars, carving, spoons and ladles. The wood is suitable for veneers and plywood, brush backs, turnery, toys, bobbins, shuttles, carriage and wagon work, shoe heel and cheap pencils. The wood is used as fuel and for making charcoal. Inner bark yields a fibre used locally for making coarse ropes.
- The pulp, when combined with 30% bamboo chemical pulp, can be utilized for the production of low-quality newsprint. Additionally, the tree is appreciated for its leaves, which are harvested for use as fodder. The wood is a good source of commercial potash. The young bark is mucilaginous and cold infusion of it is used in gur making for clarifying sugarcane juice. Paste of leaves applied in body pains, leaves also used in poultices for skin diseases and are chewed when there is deficiency of saliva.
