(Franch.) Prain
Description
Cladrastis delavayi (here spelled Cadrastis delavayi) is a deciduous tree of the eastern Sino-Himalaya, distributed from Bhutan and northeast India through northern Myanmar into south-central and southwestern China. It occurs in mixed broad-leaved and evergreen forest on warm-temperate to subtropical mountain slopes, generally between roughly 1000 and 2500 m. The photographed individual was recorded at Trashigang in eastern Bhutan at about 1600 m, flowering in May. The associated GBIF record is a spurious genus-level match (returning the kingdom-rank name and a global occurrence figure), so distribution here follows regional floristic accounts rather than the misapplied dataset.
The species is a medium-sized tree with smooth bark and odd-pinnate (imparipinnate) leaves bearing several alternate, ovate-elliptic, entire leaflets that are softly pubescent beneath. The flowers are borne in terminal, branched panicles and have the papilionaceous structure typical of Faboideae: a broad standard, two lateral wings and a keel of two partly fused petals, the colour white to creamy and often fragrant. The androecium comprises ten free or basally connate stamens, and the fruit is a flattened, several-seeded legume that is narrowly winged along the sutures and dehisces tardily.
Cladrastis is a small disjunct genus of the temperate Northern Hemisphere, with species in eastern Asia and a single North American representative (the yellowwood, C. kentukea), making it a classic example of the East Asian–North American floristic disjunction. C. delavayi, named for the French missionary-collector Père Delavay, is one of the Chinese species and yields a hard, attractively grained timber. It is locally distributed but not regarded as globally threatened.
Author: (Franch.) Prain · Sources: POWO (Kew), GBIF, Flora of Bhutan, Flora of China (Fabaceae), Duley & Vincent revision of Cladrastis (Leguminosae)