Kerai payung or fern tree (Filicium decipiens) is a plant species in Sapindaceae, a tree that is always green with thick and round canopies such as umbrellas, 5-10 m high but old specimens in nature can exceed 25 m, upright stems, gray bark ash to reddish brown, smooth when young but rough and cracked when mature.
F. decipiens has large, fern-like and conspicuous leaves, up to 40 cm long and made of elongated longitudinal, glossy green leaflets arranged in pairs. Leaves on stems with a length of 3-10 cm, alternating, imparipinnat, 15-30 cm long and 12-15 cm wide.
Winged rachis with 6-12 pairs of opposite or sub-opposite leaflets, sessile, oblong-lanceolate with full margins and slightly wavy, 6-12 cm long and 1-3 cm wide, coriaceous, dark green and glossy above.
Flowers grow on stems with a length of 7 cm as panicles for lengths of 15-30 cm which carry many small, unisexual flowers and hermaphrodites with a diameter of 0.4-0.6 cm. Pentaparted petals with imbricate ovate lobes, five greenish white orbicular with pink shades, five stamina and bilocular ovaries.
The fruit is ovate, apiculate, 1 cm in diameter, reddish in color and tends to be dark blue when ripe and contains 1-2 seeds. Trees spread generatively in subtropical and tropical nature for annual temperatures of 13-34C, rainfall 800-4500 mm/year and dry season 7 months or less and altitude 0-1300 m.
TAXON
Kingdom: Plantae
Phylum: Tracheophyta
Subphylum: Angiospermae
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Sapindales
Family: Sapindaceae
Genus: Filicium Thwaites in Enum. Pl. Zeyl.: 408 (1864)
Species: Filicium decipiens (Wight & Arn.) Thwaites in Enum. Pl. Zeyl.: 408 (1864)
HOMOTYPIC SYNONYMS
Rhus decipiens Wight & Arn. in Prodr. Fl. Ind. Orient. 1: 172 (1834)
Jurighas decipiens (Wight & Arn.) Kuntze in Revis. Gen. Pl. 1: 144 (1891)
Pteridophyllum decipiens (Wight & Arn.) Thwaites in Hooker's J. Bot. Kew Gard. Misc. 6: 66 (1854)
HETEROTYPIC SYNONYMS
Filicium decipiens f. apterum Capuron in Mém. Mus. Natl. Hist. Nat., B, Bot. 29: 40 (1969)
Filicium elongatum Radlk. ex Taub. in H.G.A.Engler (ed.), Pflanzenw. Ost-Afrikas, C: 252 (1895)
PUBLICATIONS
Baksh-Comeau, Y., Maharaj, S.S., Adams, C.D., Harris, S.A., Filer, D.L. & Hawthorne, W.D. (2016). An annotated checklist of the vascular plants of Trinidad and Tobago with analysis of vegetation types and botanical 'hotspots'. Phytotaxa 250: 1-431.
Barthelat, F. (2019). La flore illustrée de Mayotte: 1-687. Biotope éditions.
Davies, F.G. & Verdcourt, B. (1998). Flora of Tropical East Africa, Dodonaea: 1-108.
Evenhuis, N.L. & Eldredge, L.G. (eds.) (2012). Records of the Hawaii biological survey for 2011. Part II: plants. Bishop Museum Occasional Papers 113: 1-102.
Exell, A.W., Fernandes, A. & Wild, H. (eds.) (1966). Flora Zambesiaca 2(2): 353-653. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
Govaerts, R. (2001). World Checklist of Seed Plants Database in ACCESS Genera starting with letter E-F: 1-50919.
Hedberg, I. & Edwards, S. (eds.) (1989 publ. 1990). Flora of Ethiopia and Eritrea 3: 1-659. The National Herbarium, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia & The Department of Systematic Botany, Upps.
Mao, A.A. & Dash, S.S. (2020). Flowering Plants of India an Annotated Checklist (Dicotyledons) 1: 1-970. Botanical Survey of India.
Nielsen, I.C. & al. (1992-1994). Flora Malesiana 11: 1-768. Noordhoff-Kolff N.V., Djakarta. Pasha, M.K. & Uddin, S.B. (2013). Dictionary of plant names of Bangladesh, Vasc. Pl.: 1-434. Janokalyan Prokashani, Chittagong, Bangladesh.
Timberlake, J.R., Bayliss, J., Alves, T., Francisco, J., Harris, T., Nangoma, D. & de Sousa, C. (2009). Biodiversity and Conservation of Mchese Mountain, Malawi. Report produced under the Darwin Initiative Award 15/036: 1-71. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
VERNACULAR NAME
Bengali: ফার্ন গাছ
Burmese: ဖန်းပင်
Chinese (simplified): 蕨叶树
Chinese (traditional): 蕨葉樹 - 木羊齒 - 樹蕨 - 树蕨
English: Fern tree, Ferntree, Fern leaf tree
Filipino: Lilim ng payong
Finnish: Siipisanikkapuu
French: Arbre fougère
Hindi: फर्न का पेड़
Indonesian: Kerai payung, Ki sabun
Japanese: シダノキ
Java: Kerai payung
Kannada: Kaadu hoovarasi, Neeroli
Khmer: ដើមត្រែង
Lao: ຕົ້ນເຟີນ
Malayalam: Irumbarakki, Neeroli, Valmuriccha, Muriccha, Sanimaram
Malaysia: Terendak payung
Sinhala: පර්ණාංග ගස
Spanish: Árbol helecho
Sunda: Ki sabun
Tamil: காட்டுப்புவரசு - நீங்கல் - ஆதடலி - எருவில்லிப்பாலை Kattupuvarasu, Ningal, Athadali, Eruvillipaalai
Telugu: patta kunkudu
Thai: ต้นเฟิร์น
Vietnam: Cây dương xỉ
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