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Alstonia scholaris
Also called Blackboard Tree, Milkwood Pine, White Cheesewood, Milky Pine, Chatim, Deviltree, Ditabark
In Singapore: Pulai, White Cheesewood, Blackboard Tree, Milkwood Pine, 糖胶树 (Grown in Singapore)
1 NParks heritage tree in Singapore: Found in Temenggong Road, on Stateland opposite House No. 22 (gated, Year 2013) - walking access to HT via Marang Road.
A large evergreen tree from tropical Asia and northern Australia, often grown as a shade or ornamental tree in warm climates. It needs a warm, frost-free site and room to grow, as it can reach 40 m tall.
Alstonia scholaris, commonly called blackboard tree, scholar tree, milkwood or devil's tree in English, is an evergreen tree in the oleander and frangipani family Apocynaceae. Its natural range is from Pakistan to China, and south to northern Australia. It is a toxic plant, but is used traditionally for myriad diseases and complaints. It is called 'Saptaparna' in India and is the sacred tree of the 2nd Jain tirthankar Ajitnatha. It was first described by Linnaeus in 1767, who gave it the name Echites scholaris.
This is a toxic plant. At high doses, an extract of the plant exhibited marked damage to all the major organs of the body in both rats and mice. The toxicity appears to depend on the plant organ studied, as well as the season it is harvested, with the bark collected in the monsoon season being the least toxic, and bark in the summer the most. Intraperitoneal administration is much more toxic than oral. Rats were more susceptible to the poison than mice, and pure-bred mice strains were more susceptible than crossbred. The toxic effects may be due to the alkaloid echitamine in the bark.
Alstonia scholaris grows in a broad range of habitats in tropical and subtropical areas, in a range of forest types from rainforest to savannah, on a variety of soils including alluvial, volcanic and metamorphic, and at altitudes from sea level to more than 1,000 m (3,300 ft).
The wood of Alstonia scholaris has been recommended for the manufacture of pencils, as it is suitable in nature and the tree grows rapidly and is easy to cultivate. In Sri Lanka its light wood was used for coffins. The wood close to the root is very light and of white colour, and in Borneo was used for net floats, household utensils, trenchers, corks, etc. In Theravada Buddhism, the first Buddha is said to have used A. scholaris as the tree for achieving enlightenment.
Alstonia angustifolia · Alstonia angustiloba · Alstonia · Alstonia constricta · Deviltree · Alstonia pneumatophora · Hard Milkwood · Alstonia
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Alstonia scholaris by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
