The open plant encyclopedia
Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.
The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.
Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.
Trema orientale
Also called Poison Peach, Indian Charcoal Tree, Indian Nettle, Oriental Nettle, Rhodesian Elm, Elm, Trema
Trema orientale is a fast-growing tree or shrub in the hemp family, native to tropical and warm regions of the Old World. It grows readily in warm, humid conditions with plenty of sun and moisture, and is often seen as a pioneer tree on disturbed ground.
Trema orientale (sometimes Trema orientalis) is a species of flowering tree in the hemp family, Cannabaceae. It is known by many common names, including charcoal-tree, Indian charcoal-tree, pigeon wood, Oriental trema, and in Hawaii, where it has become naturalized, gunpowder tree, or nalita. It has a near universal distribution in tropical and warm temperate parts of the Old World, with a range extending from South Africa, through the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent and southern China to Southeast Asia and Australia.
Trema orientale is native to tropical and southern Africa (including Madagascar), Asia (the Arabian Peninsula, China, eastern Asia, tropical Asia) and Australia.
The wood is relatively soft, and burns easily and quickly when dry. The wood is suitable for paper and pulp production, producing paper with good tensile strength and folding endurance. The bark can be used for making string or rope, and used as waterproofing fishing-lines. In India and Tanzania, the wood is used to make charcoal and is a good fire starter.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Trema orientale 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.
