Kalumpang
Sterculia foetida · Java olive
- Names in the book
- Kalumpag̃, Tag.; Bag̃ar, Iloc.
- Used for
- Skin
- Colours
- flowerred, yellowfruitred
- Native range
- East Africa to northern Australia
- In the Philippines, per the book
- Luzon, Mindanao, Cebú, Iloilo. Blooms in March.
- Family
- Malvaceae, filed in the book under Sterculiaceæ
- Printed as
- Sterculia fœtida, L. (S. polyphilla, R. Br.; Clompanus major, Rumph.)
- Sources
- Page 51 on Project Gutenberg · Wikipedia
The plant today
Sterculia foetida is a soft-wooded tree that can grow up to 35 metres (115 feet) tall. Common names for the plant are the bastard poon tree, Java olive tree, hazel sterculia, wild almond tree, and skunk tree.
Excerpt from “Sterculia foetida” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Recorded in the Philippines
GBIF holds 127 records of this plant from the Philippines. The ones with map coordinates fall in 12 provinces, most often Palawan (5), Occidental Mindoro (3), Batangas (2), Bulacan (2), Ilocos Norte (2), Aklan (2), Pangasinan (2), Rizal (2), and 4 more.
Counts from GBIF occurrence records, October 2026. They include planted trees and garden plants, and a province with no records may only lack collectors.
What the 1901 book says
A historical record, quoted as printed. Doses and remedies here are not medical advice.
Uses
A decoction of the leaves is used as a wash in suppurative cutaneous eruptions. The fruit is astringent and is used in Java as an injection for gonorrhœa. In western India and in the Philippines it is an article of diet. The seeds yield an oil that is used for illumination and as a comestible.
Botanical description
A large tree of the first order with digitate leaves of 6–8 leaflets, broad, oval, very acute, tough, glabrous, growing on a long common petiole. No petiole proper. Flowers of a fœtid or feculent odor, hermaphrodite, in compound racemes. Calyx fleshy, soft pubescent internally, bell-shaped, in 5 parts. Corolla none. Nectary 5-toothed, on the end of a small column. Stamens 15, inserted on the border of the nectary by threes, forming a triangle. Filament almost entirely wanting. In the midst of the stamens is visible a small, hairy body of 5 lobules which are the rudiments of the ovaries. The style protrudes and twists downwards. Stigma thick, compressed, of 5 lobules. Fruit, five woody pods, semicircular, joined to a common center, each enclosing many oval seeds inserted in the superior suture.
Recent research
The most cited papers since 2022 that name this plant in the title, pulled from Europe PMC in October 2026. Titles are the authors' own and the findings have not been reviewed here.
- Deciphering the Pharmacological Potentials of Methanol Extract of Sterculia foetida Seeds Using Experimental and Computational Approaches
- Removal of cationic and anionic toxic pollutants from simulated solutions using Sterculia foetida pod (SFP): equilibrium isotherm, kinetics, and characterization
- Integrated formic acid and deep eutectic solvent mediated sustainable synthesis of cellulose nanocrystals from Sterculia foetida shells