Helicteres viscida (PROSEA)

Plant Resources of South-East Asia Introduction

List of species

Helicteres viscida Blume

Family: Sterculiaceae

Synonyms

Helicteres hirsuta Lour. var. viscida (Blume) Kuntze, Orthothecium viscidum (Blume) Hassk., Oudemansia viscida (Blume) Miq.

Vernacular names

• White isora (En)
• Indonesia: dlumpangan (Javanese), kakapasan (Sundanese), kerkuching (Lampung)
• Laos: dok ki on
• Thailand: khee on, po khee on (Chiang Rai)
• Vietnam: duôi chôn.

Distribution

Burma (Myanmar)(Tenasserim), Thailand, Indo-China, China, Peninsular Malaysia and Java.

Uses

The tough bast is used like that of H. isora L. for making ropes, e.g. in Java and Indo-China.

Observations

A straggling shrub, up to 3 m tall, densely covered with viscid, stellate hairs. Leaves ovate-oblong, up to 16 cm × 12 cm, base cordate, apex often shallowly 3-lobed, beneath often whitish-woolly. Inflorescence spiciform or racemose, up to 3 cm long with flowers white with a yellow blotch, bearing a distinctly stalked, green gland at their base, gynandrophore up to 3 cm long, petals 1-3 cm. Fruit consisting of 5 follicles, straight (not twisted), 2-3.5 cm long, woolly hairy. In Java H. viscida occurs up to 300 m altitude on slopes and in brushwood. H. viscida flowers year-round in Java, whereas flowering and fruiting in Indo-China has been recorded as taking place from September to April. In studies in Indo-China in the 1940s, the fibre of H. viscida , separated by retting for 13 days, contained 61% cellulose, 16% pentosans, 16% lignin and 1% ash.

Selected sources

20, 21, 34, 59, 71, 109, 147.

Authors

M. Brink, P.C.M. Jansen & C.H. Bosch