Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Malpighiales > Euphorbiaceae > Triadica > Triadica sebifera

Triadica sebifera (Chinese tallow)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Triadica sebifera, also known as Sapium sebiferum, is commonly known as the Chinese tallow, Chinese tallowtree, Florida aspen, chicken tree, gray popcorn tree, and candleberry tree. The tree is native to eastern Asia, and is most commonly associated with eastern China, Taiwan, and Japan. In these regions, the waxy coating of the seeds is used for candle and soap making, and the leaves are used as herbal medicine to treat boils. The plant sap and leaves are reputed to be toxic, and decaying leaves from the plant are toxic to other species of plant. The specific epithets sebifera and sebiferum mean "wax-bearing" and refer to the vegetable tallow that coats the seeds.
View Wikipedia Record: Triadica sebifera

Invasive Species

View ISSG Record: Triadica sebifera

Attributes

Edible [1]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [1]  Monoecious
Hazards [1]  The sap is poisonous;
Leaf Type [1]  Deciduous
Lifespan [2]  Perennial
Pollinators [1]  Insects, Lepidoptera, Bees
Specific Gravity [3]  0.473
Structure [1]  Tree
Usage [1]  The seed is coated with a wax. This wax, which comprises about 24% of the seed; It has excellent burning quality, and gives an inodorous clear bright flame; The wax is also used for making soap, cloth dressing and fuel; Pure tallow fat is known in commerce as Pi-yu; The wax is separated from the seed by steeping it in hot water and skimming off the wax as it floats to the surface; The wax is solid at temperatures below 40
Height [1]  30 feet (9 m)
Width [1]  16.4 feet (5 m)
View Plants For A Future Record : Triadica sebifera

Protected Areas

Predators

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 2USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
♦ 3Chave J, Coomes D, Jansen S, Lewis SL, Swenson NG, Zanne AE (2009) Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Ecology Letters 12: 351-366. Zanne AE, Lopez-Gonzalez G, Coomes DA, Ilic J, Jansen S, Lewis SL, Miller RB, Swenson NG, Wiemann MC, Chave J (2009) Data from: Towards a worldwide wood economics spectrum. Dryad Digital Repository.
♦ 4del Hoyo, J., Elliott, A., Sargatal, J., Christie, D.A. & de Juana, E. (eds.). Handbook of the Birds of the World Alive. Lynx Edicions, Barcelona.
♦ 5Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 6HOSTS - a Database of the World's Lepidopteran Hostplants Gaden S. Robinson, Phillip R. Ackery, Ian J. Kitching, George W. Beccaloni AND Luis M. Hernández
♦ 7SEASONAL CHANGES IN THE DIET OF JAPANESE GIANT FLYING SQUIRRELS IN RELATION TO REPRODUCTION, Takeo Kawamichi, Journal of Mammalogy, 78(1):204-212, 1997
♦ 8Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0