Description
Maple poplar (scientific name: Pterocarya stenoptera C. DC.) is a plant of the Juglans family and the genus Maple. Large trees, up to 30 meters high, with a diameter at breast height of 1 meter; young trees have smooth bark, light gray, and deeply lobed in old age; branchlets gray to dark brown with gray-yellow lenticels; buds are stalked. The leaves are mostly even-numbered or rare-odd-numbered pinnately compound leaves, 8-16 cm long (up to 25 cm), and the petiole is 2-5 cm long. The inflorescences of male catkins are about 6-10 cm long, and are born alone in the axils of the leaf scars on last year's branches. The axis of the inflorescence often has sparse star-shaped hairs. The female catkin inflorescence is terminal, about 10-15 cm long, the inflorescence axis is densely covered with stellate hairs and simple hairs, and the lower part without flowers is as long as 3 cm. The female flowers are almost sessile, and the bases of bracts and bracteoles often have small star-shaped hairs and densely covered with glands. The infructescence is 20-45 cm long, and the infructescence axis is often covered with persistent hairs. The fruit is oblong, about 6-7 mm long; the fruit wings are narrow, strip or broad, 12-20 mm long, 3-6 mm wide, with nearly parallel veins. Flowering period from April to May, fruit maturity period from August to September.
Fengyang is distributed in various parts of North China, Central China, East China, South China and Southwest China. Born in the forests along the river beaches and damp mountain slopes below 1500 meters above sea level.
Widely planted as garden trees or street trees. The bark and branch bark contain tannins, which can be used to extract tannin extracts, and can also be used as fiber raw materials; the fruits can be used as feed and wine, and the seeds can also be squeezed out of oil. The material of maple poplar is light and soft, easy to process, and the drying condition is not good. It can be used as a raw material for construction, bridges, furniture, farm tools and artificial cotton. The bark decoction can be used as medicine, and the stem bark and leaves can be decocted or crushed to make a powder, which can be used as an insecticide.
