Mesua ferrea
| Ceylon ironwood | |
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| Ceylon ironwood in Thelwatta, South-East Sri Lanka. | |
| Scientific classification | |
| Kingdom: | Plantae |
| (unranked): | Angiosperms |
| (unranked): | Eudicots |
| (unranked): | Rosids |
| Order: | Malpighiales |
| Family: | Calophyllaceae |
| Genus: | Mesua |
| Species: | M. ferrea |
| Binomial name | |
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Mesua ferrea L. |
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| Synonyms | |
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Mesua coromandelina Wight |
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Mesua coromandelina Wight
Mesua nagassarium (Burm.f.) Kosterm.
Mesua pedunculata Wight
Mesua roxburghii Wight
Mesua sclerophylla Thw.
Mesua speciosa Choisy
Mesua stylosa
Mesua ferrea (Sri Lankan ironwood, Indian rose chestnut, or cobra's saffron) is a species in the family Calophyllaceae. This slow-growing tree is named after the heaviness and hardness of its timber. It is widely cultivated as an ornamental due to its graceful shape, grayish-green foliage with a beautiful pink to red flush of drooping young leaves, and large, fragrant white flowers. It is native to wet, tropical parts of Sri Lanka, India, southern Nepal, Burma, Thailand, Indochina, the Philippines, Malaysia and Sumatra, where it grows in evergreen forests, especially in river valleys. In the eastern Himalayas and Western Ghats in India it grows up to altitudes of 1,500 m (4,900 ft), while in Sri Lanka up to 1,000 m (3,300 ft).
The tree can grow over 30 m (98 ft) tall, often buttressed at the base with a trunk up to 2 m (6 ft 7 in) in diameter. The bark of younger trees has an ash grey color with flaky peelings, while of old trees the bark is dark ash-grey with a red-brown blaze. It has simple, opposite, narrow, oblong to lanceolate, blue-grey to dark green leaves that are 7–15 cm (2.8–5.9 in) long and 1.5–3.5 cm (0.59–1.38 in) wide, with a whitish underside. The emerging young leaves are red to yellowish pink and drooping. The branches are slender, terete and glabrous. The bisexual flowers are 4–7.5 cm (1.6–3.0 in) in diameter, with four white petals and a center of numerous orange yellow stamens. The fruit is an ovoid to globose capsule with one to two seeds.
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Wikipedia