Pterygota alata(Roxb.) R.Br.

WFO wfo-0000475845 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 5 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 5 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Pterygota alata, photographed by Karthik Thrikkadeeri
fig. a Karthik Thrikkadeeri, CC BY 4.0 / 2018-02-10 / obs. 177532576
Pterygota alata, photographed by Karthik Thrikkadeeri
fig. b Karthik Thrikkadeeri, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 177532615
Pterygota alata, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. c Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 176733306
Pterygota alata, photographed by Siddarth Machado
fig. d Siddarth Machado, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 45457714
Pterygota alata, photographed by Dinesh Valke
fig. e Dinesh Valke, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 176733307
Pterygota alata, photographed by Siddarth Machado
fig. f Siddarth Machado, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 61573925
Pterygota alata, photographed by Siddarth Machado
fig. g Siddarth Machado, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 45457726
Pterygota alata, photographed by Siddarth Machado
fig. h Siddarth Machado, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 45457703

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 15 botanical countries

Regions where Pterygota alata is native: China South-Central, Hainan, Andaman Is., Assam, Bangladesh, Cambodia, East Himalaya, India, Laos, Malaya, Myanmar, Nicobar Is., Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam China South-CentralHainanAssamBangladeshCambodiaEast HimalayaIndiaLaosMalayaMyanmarSumateraThailandVietnam Andaman Is.Nicobar Is.
Native distribution of Pterygota alata, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Andaman Is. AND ASIA-TROPICAL
Assam ASS
Bangladesh BAN
Cambodia CBD
East Himalaya EHM
India IND
Laos LAO
Malaya MLY
Myanmar MYA
Nicobar Is. NCB
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
Hainan CHH

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 33 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low 6.5 °C 14.6 °C 24.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 28.8 °C 32.2 °C 38.5 °C
Annual rainfall 904 mm 2,263 mm 3,757 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 10 mm 52 mm 624 mm

It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 33 research-grade observations of Pterygota alata that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 6 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Clompanus alata (Roxb.) Kuntze
  • Pterygota alata var. irregularis (W.W.Sm.) Deb & S.K.Basu
  • Pterygota roxburghii Schott & Endl.
  • Sterculia alata Roxb.
  • Sterculia coccinea Wall.
  • Sterculia haynei Bedd.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.