Engelhardia spicata seed

LATIN NAME: Engelhardia spicata

COMMON NAME: Spiked Engelhardia

The spiked engelhardia is a handsome, upright, tall, deciduous tree of the warm forests, and its fine, pinnate leaves of the many narrow leaflets and its fine, drooping, catkin-like heads of the small flowers, followed by the small, winged, nut-like fruits, have made it a treasured and fine tree of the region. It grows as an upright, tall, deciduous tree, reaching up to twenty metres or more, with the upright, tapering trunk bearing the alternate, pinnate leaves of the many narrow, pointed leaflets and, through the spring, the fine, drooping, catkin-like heads of the small, greenish flowers, followed by the small, round, nut-like fruits with the fine, broad, three-lobed wings. It is a species of the flowering tree in the walnut family, and it is native to the warm forests of the south-eastern Asia, while it is prized for its fine, graceful form, and it is known as the spiked engelhardia.

In the walnut family it is the winged-fruited member of the warm forests, a tree whose graceful, pinnate crown carries the family look into the tropics.

Scientific Research & Plant Biotechnology

The spiked engelhardia appears in the forest-ecology papers of the south-eastern Asia as a fine subject of the warm forest study, and the botanists have mapped its place among the winged-fruited trees of the walnut family. The seed-dispersal researchers have watched the small, three-lobed wings carry the fruits on the wind, a textbook case of the way the trees of the forest spread their seed. The foresters have studied the straight, useful timber and the graceful form, and the growers of the warm-region trees keep the species in their catalogues for the shade and the structure it gives the garden.

Ecological & Economic Value & Wide Applications

In the warm garden, the spiked engelhardia is the graceful, pinnate tree of the summer shade. Its drooping, catkin-like flowers feed the bees, its winged, nut-like fruits feed the birds and the squirrels, and the fine, open crown gives the garden a light, generous shade. The straight, useful wood has served the building and the crafts of the region, and the tree grows well in the moist, well-drained, warm ground. Pinnate, graceful and useful.

The seeds are best sown fresh — press them onto the surface of pots of moist, free-draining soil at a shallow depth, keep the pots in a sheltered, half-shaded spot and never let them dry out, and the little winged seeds will be up in good time.