Banilad
Sterculia urens · Gum karaya tree
- Names in the book
- Banilad, Tag.
- Used for
- Joint pain, sprains and swelling
- Colours
- flowergreenish-yellowfruitred
- Native range
- India
- In the Philippines, per the book
- Cebú, Iloilo.
- Family
- Malvaceae, filed in the book under Sterculiaceæ
- Printed as
- Sterculia urens, Roxb. (S. cordifolia, Blanco; Cavallium urens, Schott. & Endl.)
- Sources
- Page 52 on Project Gutenberg · Wikipedia
The plant today
Sterculia urens is a species of plant in the family Malvaceae. It is native to India and has been introduced into Burma. A small to medium-sized tree with a pale-coloured trunk, it is commonly known as the bhutyā (भुत्या) in Marathi (meaning "ghost tree"), kulu, Indian tragacanth, gum karaya, katira, sterculia gum or kateera gum. The specific name urens refers to the stinging hairs present on the flowers.
Excerpt from “Sterculia urens” on Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Recorded in the Philippines
GBIF holds no records of this plant from the Philippines.
Checked against GBIF occurrence records, October 2026.
What the 1901 book says
A historical record, quoted as printed. Doses and remedies here are not medical advice.
Uses
The root bark is pounded up and applied locally in orchitis and in severe contusions with supposed fracture of the bones; native charlatans pretend to cure the latter condition by this treatment.
The trunk exudes a sort of gum, which with water forms a sort of colorless, odorless gelatin which dissolves at the boiling point. I do not know to what use this gum is applied in therapeutics, but it is often found mixed with the Senegambian gum acacia.
Botanical description
A tree with leaves bunched, 7–9-veined, heart-shaped, ovate, broad and entire, glabrous upper surface, short white down on lower surface. Petioles of same length as the leaves. Flowers small, yellow, numerous, polygamous, growing in large, terminal panicles covered with a fine, sticky down. Calyx bell-shaped, 5 acute papyraceous divisions, each bearing a small gland near its base. No corolla. Stamens 10, united in a column, the upper ends free. Five pods joined at one point, half-moon shaped, with woody shell, glabrous within and with a short down on the outer surface. Three or four kidney-shaped seeds, the testa thin and crustaceous.
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.
- Insight into novel inhibitors from Sterculia urens against Cholera via pharmacoinformatics and molecular dynamics simulation approaches
- Seasonal dynamics and enzyme profiles of diverse endophytic fungi in Sterculia urens Roxb.: insights into host-associated trends
- Bioactivity screening of endophytic fungi from Sterculia urens and GC-MS metabolites profiling of the potent isolate Chaetomium meridiolense