East indian screwtree

Helicteres isora, the East Indian or Indian screw tree, is a large shrub or small tree in the family Malvaceae (formerly Sterculiaceae) growing 3 to 8 metres tall, with grey, slightly fissured bark and young branches covered in stellate hairs. The alternate leaves are ovate to obliquely rounded, 7 to 12 centimetres long, with a serrate margin, an oblique heart-shaped base and a softly hairy underside. Showy flowers borne in the leaf axils open brick-red to orange-red and fade with age, the five narrow petals subtended by a tubular calyx. The fruit is the plant's most distinctive feature: a cylindrical compound pod 3 to 5 centimetres long composed of five carpels twisted together into a tight spiral resembling a screw or corkscrew, green when young and ripening grey-brown, splitting to release numerous small angular seeds. The species occurs in dry deciduous forests, open grasslands and disturbed hill slopes across central and western India, Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Thailand and Sri Lanka, at elevations to about 1000 metres.