Alangium platanifolium seed

LATIN NAME: Alangium platanifolium

COMMON NAME: Plane-Leaved Alangium

The plane-leaved alangium is a handsome, upright, spreading, deciduous shrub or small tree of the warm woodlands, and its fine, broad, plane-like or maple-like, lobed leaves and its small, white, fragrant, star-like flowers, followed by the small, oval, blue or black, fleshy fruits, have made it a treasured and fine plant of the region. It grows as an upright, spreading, deciduous shrub or small tree, reaching up to ten metres or so, with the upright, branching stems bearing the alternate, broad, plane-like or maple-like, pointed, lobed leaves and, through the late spring, the small, white, fragrant, star-like flowers with the many fine stamens, followed by the small, oval, blue or black, fleshy, single-seeded fruits. It is a species of the flowering plant in the dogwood family, and it is native to the warm woodlands of the eastern Asia, while it is prized for its fine flowers, and it is known as the plane-leaved alangium.

In the dogwood family it is the star-flowered, maple-leaved shrub of the warm woodlands, a plant that borrows the leaf of a maple and the flower of a dogwood.

Scientific Research & Plant Biotechnology

The plane-leaved alangium roots and parts are a familiar subject in the traditional plant chemistry of the eastern Asia, and the constituents have been worked through with the greatest care by the researchers across the world. The botanists have mapped its place in the dogwood family and the warm woodland flora, and the horticulturists have grown the small, white, fragrant, star-like flowers and the broad, lobed leaves for the garden. The plant is best appreciated as a subject of study rather than a casual remedy, and the growers of the flowering shrubs keep it in their catalogues.

Ecological & Economic Value & Wide Applications

In the mixed border, the plane-leaved alangium is the star-flowered shrub of the late spring. Its fragrant, white flowers feed the bees, its blue or black, fleshy fruits feed the birds, and the broad, maple-like leaves give the garden a fine, bold presence. It is treasured for the star-like flowers and the easy growth in the moist, well-drained ground of the sheltered spot. Star-flowered, fragrant and broad-leaved.

Mix the seeds into a bag of damp sand and keep it chilled in the fridge through a spell of cold weather, then sow them shallowly in pots of loamy, free-draining soil, keep them moist and set the pots in a sheltered, half-shaded spot, and they’ll come up steadily.