Bridelia tomentosa
Common Name: Pop-Gun Seed, Kenidai
Growth Requirements (including habitat): It grows well in full sun and dry soils.
Habit (Herb/Shrub/Treelet/Tree): It is an erect to scrambling shrub or small tree, up to 13 m high and 15 cm DBH (diameter at breast height). Its leaves are often rather small, with petiole terete, glabrous (smooth, without hair) to tomentose. The upper surface of leaves may range from glabrous to scattered appressed hairs, dark green, while the lower surface varies from glabrous to tomentose, pubescent on main nerves, green to whitish green. Its branches are very slender, often long and whip like, spreading or drooping, glabrous to tomentose, with scattered lenticels, old branches sometimes thorny. Its inflorescences are small multibracteate glomerules of up to 10(-20) sessile green flowers; bracts broadly triangular, up to 0.7 by 0.5 mm, puberulous, with ciliate margin. Flowers are scented, giving off faint musty smell, sessile, rarely with up to l mm long glabrous stalk (pistillate flowers stouter stalked than staminate ones); sepals triangular, glabrous, greenish yellow; petals very variable in shape, base cuneate to spatulate, apex roundish, notched or lobulate, up to 1 by 0.8 mm, whitish yellow; disc glabrous.
Pictures from: http://www.natureloveyou.sg/Bridelia%20tomentosa/Main.html
Uses: The wood from the Bridelia Tomentosa is suitable for baskets, carts, wheels, and tool-handles. It is a tannin-producing plant, where the bark is used for tanning and to colour wood black. Its bark is also used for colic. It has edible plant parts; fruits are eaten and leaves are used with other herbs in Malaysia to treat stomachache and high fever while roots are used in epidemic influenza. Seeds used by children for bullets in bamboo guns.
Interesting Information: It acts as a food plant for butterflies.
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