Falconeria insignis Royle

The latex is poisonous. The plant is used for stupefying fish in India.

Trees, 7-18(-40) m tall, deciduous, often fruiting when leafless; bark very thick and rough. Branchlets robust, many branched, slightly succulent, with leaf scars. Stipules subulate, ca. 4 mm; petioles 2.5-6 cm, apex 2-glandular; leaf blade elliptic, (4.5-)8-20(-33) × (2-)4-11 cm, papery, base attenuate to acute, margins undulate-serrate, apex acuminate; lateral veins 10-23 pairs, sometimes with 3 obscure basal veins. Thyrses terminal, unisexual, 10-25; bracts ca. 0.75 mm, apex rounded, basal glands large, mostly decurrent along axis. Male flowers: pedicels 0.25-0.5 mm; calyx to 1 mm; stamen filaments 0.75-1 mm; anthers globose, 0.4-0.6 mm. Female flowers: pedicels ca. 1 mm; calyx 2- or 3-lobed, 1.5-2 mm; ovary ovate, with 2 or 3 locules; style ca. 0.5 mm; stigmas 0.5-1 mm, recurved. Infructescences up to 50 cm; fruits biglobose 7-8 mm in diam.; exocarp slightly fleshy. Seeds globose, outside with white, waxy arils. Fl. Mar-Apr, fr. May-Dec. n = 22.

Hainan, Sichuan, Yunnan [Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, India, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam].

Deciduous forests, rocky places; 200-800 m.

Carumbium insigne (Royle) Kurz; Excoecaria insignis (Royle) Müller Argoviensis; Falconeria wallichiana Royle; Gymnobothrys lucida Wallich ex Baillon; Sapium insigne (Royle) Trimen.