Botany online 1996-2004. No further update, only historical document of botanical science!
Pterocarpus has remarkable fruits: anemochory, dispersal by means of barbed fruits and "Bodenroller" (winged fruits rolling along the ground), a triple strategy. The fruits are enclosed by a flat, dry involucre with a large surface and a relatively high weight. The spiny centre helps the fruit to stick to an animal (epizoochoric dispersal), the arrangement of the wings allows a dispersal by wind currents at the ground. Pterocarpus occurs in the savannah in the south of Africa.