Botanical Description.--A large tree covered with sharp, conical
and tough spines. Leaves alternate, compound, digitate, caducous;
leaflets 5-7 with long common petiole. Flowers solitary or in axillary
cymes, hermaphrodite, regular. Calyx gamosepalous, cup-shaped, with
5 acute lobules. Corolla violet, with 5 deep clefts; æstivation
convolute. Stamens numerous, united at the base in 5 bundles,
free above, bearing unilocular anthers. Ovary of 5 many-ovulate
compartments, with a style ending in 5 short branches. Capsule woody,
ovoid, loculicidal, with 5 valves. Seeds numerous, black, covered
with cottony fibers.
Habitat.--Angat, Iloilo. Blooms in February.
_Eriodendron anfractuosum_, DC. (_Bombax pentandrum_, L.)
Nom. Vulg.--_Boboy_, Tag.; _Doldol_, Vis.; _Bulak kastila_, Pam.
Uses.--The principal use made of this plant in the Philippines is to
stuff the pillows with the cotton that it yields. The leaves, pounded
with a little water, yield a mucilaginous juice highly prized by the
natives as a wash for the hair, mixing it with _gogo_. The root bark
is emetic in dose of 1.25 grm. The cotton yielded by this tree should
be used for the same therapeutic purposes as that of gossypium, and
being of an exceedingly fine fiber it would give better results. The
Filipinos use it to treat burns and sores. I have often used it,
being careful always to impregnate it thoroughly with some antiseptic
solution. In the treatment of burns it has been my custom to envelope
the part in a thick layer of this cotton, after bathing it with a
tepid 1-2,000 solution of corrosive sublimate and dusting with a very
fine powder of boracic acid.
Botanical Description.--A tree 40-50° high. Trunk somewhat thorny, the
branches horizontal, arranged in stars of 3-4. Leaves compound with
7 leaflets, lanceolate, entire, glabrous. Flowers in umbels of 8 or
more flowerets. No common peduncle, the individual ones long. Calyx,
5 obtuse sepals, slightly notched. Corolla, 5 fleshy petals, obtusely
lanceolate and bent downwards. Stamens 5. Anthers of irregular shape,
peltate, with the borders deeply undulate. Stigma in 5 parts. Pod 4-6'
long, spindle-shaped. Seeds enveloped in very fine cotton fiber.
Habitat.--Exceedingly common in all parts of the islands. Blooms
in December.
STERCULIACEÆ.
Sterculia Family.
_Sterculia foetida_, L. (_S. polyphilla_, R. Br.; _Clompanus major_,
Rumph.)
Nom. Vulg.--_Kalumpang_, Tag.; _Bangar_, Iloc.
Uses.--A decoction of the leaves is used as a wash in suppurative
cutaneous eruptions. The fruit is astringent and is used in Java as
an injection for gonorrhoea. In western India and in the Philippines
it is an article of diet. The seeds yield an oil that is used for
illumination and as a comestible.
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