''Polysporaceylanica'' is a species of
plant
Plants are the eukaryotes that form the Kingdom (biology), kingdom Plantae; they are predominantly Photosynthesis, photosynthetic. This means that they obtain their energy from sunlight, using chloroplasts derived from endosymbiosis with c ...
in the family
Theaceae
Theaceae (), the tea family, is a family of flowering plants comprising shrubs and trees, including the economically important tea plant, and the ornamental camellias. It can be described as having from seven to 40 genera, depending on the sour ...
. It is
endemic
Endemism is the state of a species being found only in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also foun ...
to
Sri Lanka
Sri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, also known historically as Ceylon, is an island country in South Asia. It lies in the Indian Ocean, southwest of the Bay of Bengal, separated from the Indian subcontinent, ...
.
Culture
It is known as "සුදු මිහිරිය - sudu mihiriya" in Sinhala.
Chemical constituents
The plant contains the
oleanane
Oleanane is a natural triterpenoid. It is commonly found in woody angiosperms and as a result is often used as an indicator of these plants in the fossil record. It is a member of the oleanoid series, which consists of pentacyclic triterpenoids ...
-type
triterpenoid
Triterpenes are a class of terpenes composed of six isoprene units with the molecular formula C30H48; they may also be thought of as consisting of three terpene units. Animals, plants and fungi all produce triterpenes, including squalene, the pre ...
s
3beta-acetoxy-11alpha(2',3'-epoxyferulyloxy)-olean-13(18)-ene and
α-spinasterol.
References
Additional sources
* http://www.corbetsview.com/flowers/Sudu-mihiriya.htm
* http://dl.nsf.ac.lk/handle/1/11802
* http://www.instituteofayurveda.org/plants/plants_detail.php?i=1294&s=Family_name
* http://plants.jstor.org/specimen/k000704174?history=true
Flora of Sri Lanka
ceylanica
{{Theaceae-stub