Engelhardia spicata Seeds | Spiked Engelhardia
LATIN NAME: Engelhardia spicata
COMMON NAME: Spiked Engelhardia
Plant Profile
Spiked engelhardia is a tall forest tree of twenty to thirty metres with pinnate leaves of four to eight leaflets, a straight grey trunk and, in summer, long pendulous spikes of small green flowers. The fruit that follows is a small nut attached to a three-lobed wing.
It grows from the eastern Himalaya through southern China to Sumatra and Java, in warm humid forest between six hundred and two thousand metres. In Yunnan it is one of the trees that give the hill forest its structure, and its timber is sold locally with the walnuts and the hickories. The bark is grey and smooth on young trees and scaly on old ones, and the buttresses at the base appear only in the largest specimens.
Science & Biotechnology
The winged fruit is not a samara in the maple sense. The wing is formed from bracts that enlarge after flowering, and the nut itself is small and hard. The arrangement is an adaptation to wind dispersal in a tall forest, where a seed that falls straight down lands in deep shade.
The genus is an old one, and fossil Engelhardia pollen and fruit are found in European and North American deposits from the Tertiary, which is one line of evidence for the warmer climate of those regions at the time. The family also includes the walnuts and the hickories, and the wood shares their density and their ring-porous anatomy.
Uses & Benefits
The timber is hard, strong and pale brown, and it is used for furniture, for tool handles and for construction in the districts where it grows. It is not exported in quantity, since the trees are scattered rather than growing in stands.
The tree is occasionally planted as a shade tree in village squares, and it is grown in a few botanical collections outside the tropics. The nut is small and not worth gathering, and there is no medicinal trade in the species, though related genera are used in local medicine.
Growing from Seed
Sow fresh seed in a moist, free-draining mix at twenty-two to twenty-five degrees, and germination takes three to six weeks. The seed loses viability quickly, so it should not be stored dry for a season.
Plant out in a frost-free climate in deep, moist soil, in sun or in light shade, and water through the first two dry seasons. The tree needs humidity and does not tolerate a dry atmosphere or a cold winter. In a temperate climate it can be grown in a large conservatory for a few years, but not to maturity. The tree also needs a mycorrhizal partner in the nursery, and seedlings raised in sterile compost often yellow and stall after planting out.
Our Take
A tropical forest tree with an elegant winged fruit and a good timber, and one for a collection rather than a garden. It needs heat and humidity to be worth growing.
Related Reading
Gardeners who grow Spiked Engelhardia often pair it with these related subjects: