| Bengali Name : | Udal ful (উদাল ফুল). |
| Common Name : | Elephant rope tree. |
| Botanical Name : | Sterculia villosa |
| Family : | Malvaceae |
Udal (উদাল ফুল) is a deciduous flowering plant that is mainly native to the India along with South Asia. We do not have this plant in plenty in our Bangladesh. But we can see this around the parks often. Being a plant from this subcontinent, it doesn't have a good English name other than the Elephant rope tree, Hairy Sterculia, etc. It belongs to the plant family Sterculiaceae. Its botanical name is Sterculia villosa.
It is a medium sized tree that is having long stalked leafs (I didn't see the leafs yet) which are palmately lobed. Leafs are having petioles which are having the same size of the leafs. This plant drops all its leafs during the flowering season.
Blooming season for Udal (উদাল ফুল) is the spring here in Bangladesh (which is February). It contains only flowers with no leafs. The count of flowers are millions on the tree. Small flowers bloom in a cluster. Shape of the small flower is similar to a cup (or nearly a bell) with five lobed petals. Color of the flower is yellow or creamy yellow with having a touch of red or maroon at the center. The tree looks beautiful with those hanging flowers during spring.
The bark of the Udal (উদাল) is fibrous and with those people make ropes. Possibly it could be a reason behind the name Elephant rope plant.
Photos of this article were taken from Mirpur Botanical Garden and from Curzon hall of Dhaka University. It was the month of February 2015, at the very first day of Spring here in Bangladesh.
This article has written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog http://icwow.blogspot.com/
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