Description: Deciduous tree to ca 20 m tall, trunk and branches spiny. Leaves palmately compound, alternate; leaflets 3–7, lanceolate, 10–12 cm long; apex acute; base cunete; margin serrate; both surfaces glabrous, whitish below; petiolules short. Flowers blooming before leaf flush, fascicled, 1-many, axillary or subterminal; bracts caducous. Calyx campanulate, irregularly 3–5-lobed, thickly fleshy, persistent, densely hairy inside. Petals 5, pink, creamy yellow at base, connate at base and coherent to staminal tube; lobes spathulate, 7–10 × 2.5–3.5 cm, woolly outside. Stamens: filament tube short, glabrous, free parts or with short 5–15 of filaments, each bearing 2(or 3) twisted thecae. Ovary syncarpous, 5-locular with axile placenta; ovules many; style filiform; stigma lobulate. Capsule obovate, 12–18 cm long, inner walls densely woolly. Seeds many, enclosed in wool. |
