Botanical Name Plant's Common Name Plant Family   

   MT011 : Sterculia urens Roxb.

Plant Category : Tree

Melghat's Flora's Serial No. : 49

Synonym : Cavallium urens (Roxb.) Schott & Endl.; Clompanus urens (Roxb.) Kuntze.; Kavalama urens (Roxb.) Rafin.;

Plant Common Name : Karai, Kadhai, K-Teklej, Indian-tragacanth, gum karaya, Indian gum tragacanth • Hindi: Kulu • Kannada: Kurdu • Konkani: Pandruk • Tamil: Kavalam Tam • Malayalam: Paravakka • Telugu: Kavili • Marathi: Sardol • Rajasthani: Katila • Assamese: Odla • Gujarati: Kogdol • Oriya: Gudalo

Plant Family : Sterculiaceae

Description : Deciduous trees, to 15 m high, bark 10-12 mm, white or greenish-grey, smooth, exfoliating in large, thin, papery flakes; blaze red; exudation yellowish-white, sticky; branches horizontal; branchlets pubescent. Leaves simple, palmately 3-5 lobed, alternate, clustered at the tips of branchlets; stipules free, lateral, cauducous; petiole 8-18 cm long, stout, pubescent; lamina 15-30 x 18-30 cm, orbicular, base cordate or sagittate, lobe apex acuminate or caudate-acuminate, margin entire, glabrous above, velvety pubescent beneath, coriaceous; 3-5-ribbed from base, palmate, prominent, lateral nerves 5-7 pairs, pinnate, prominent, intercostae subscalariform, faint. Flowers polygamous, greenish-yellow, in axillary panicles, covered with sticky tomentose of glandular, stellate hairs; calyx yellow, campanulate, hairy on both surfaces, lobes 5, a small hairy gland at the base of each lobe; petals absent; male flowers: staminal column short with 10 anthers at its tip; bisexual flowers: carpels usually 5, free, superior, on a short stout gynophore; style short, thick, hairy; stigmas 5; stamens in a ring round the carpel. Fruit an aggregate of 4-6 follicles, red, densely pubescent, mixed with stinging hairs; seeds 3-6, brown or black, oblong.

Plant Location in Melghat : Frequent throughout

Medicinal Use / Activity : Gum-tonic, Trees exude gum karaya used in foodstuffs as emulsifiers, stabilizers and thickeners. The gum is used as a bulk laxative. It is not absorbed by the body, but swells up inside the gut to provide a bulk of material that gently stimulates peristalsis. The gum is also used to treat throat infections.

Plant's Phytochemicals : COMPOUNDS: -

ACTIVE COMPOUNDS (0):

Plant's Current Status : Common

Plant's Cross Database Reference : 259142

Reference : Dhore M. A. (1984) The flora of melghat tiger reserve - http://tropical.theferns.info/image.php?id=Sterculia+urens - http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/slides/Gum%20Karaya.html - https://indiabiodiversity.org/species/show/231239 - http://pubs.rsc.org/_/content/articlepdf/2017/ra/c7ra00464h

Reference : ~ Dhore MA and Joshi PA; "Flora of Melghat Tiger Reserve"; Directorate, Project Tiger, Melghat (1988); PMID :

~ S.D. Jagtap, S.S. Deokule and S.V. Bhosle; "Some unique ethnomedicinal uses of plants used by the Korku tribe of Amravati district of Maharashtra, India"; Journal of Ethnopharmacology (2006); 107: 463-469 PMID :

Kingdom : Plantae - Plants
Phylum : Tracheophyta
Subkingdom : Tracheobionta - Vascular plants
Superdivision : Spermatophyta - Seed plants
Division : Magnoliophyta - Flowering plants
Class : Magnoliopsida - Dicotyledons
Subclass :
Order : Malvales
Family : Malvaceae - Mallow family
Genus : Sterculia
Species : Sterculia urens Roxb.

Sterculia urens Roxb.
Sterculia urens Roxb.
Sterculia urens Roxb.
Sterculia urens Roxb.
Sterculia urens Roxb.
Sterculia urens Roxb.
Sterculia urens Roxb.