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Marek Michalski said...It's Alangium platanifolium, isn't it ? Very strange flowers and leaves...
Yes, correct, and TPP knows how Marek feels. My first guess was something in the Styraceae (see here for Styrax americana): yellow exerted stamens, reflexed white corolla, pendent flowers - dead wrong leaves, but that was my best guess. If you use Chinese traditional herbal medicines, Alangium is commonly used for something under its Chinese name. While it has long been placed in its own family, molecular studies now place this genus closer to the dogwoods which is not a relationship that just jumps out at you. But don't feel bad, this was a real tough one. Too bad my students didn't get to see TPP floundering. They can be tough on me. On our last field trip to a botanical garden, one of them asked about a strange looking tree while we were still several meters away, and TPP suggested it looked like a Cyndonia. One of them checked the label and crowed, "He's wrong; it's Pseudocyndonia"!
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Oh, so it got answered. It was an easy quiz for someone from Northeast Asia who coveted his "Children's Grand Encyclopedia of Native Plants" when he was a kindergartner.
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