Hevea brasiliensis

Common Names: Rubber tree/Pará rubber tree (English), Seringueira (Portuguese), Pokok Getah (Malay), Cây Cao su (Vietnamese), रबड़ (Hindi), ยางพารา (Thai), パラゴムノキ (Japanese), 巴西橡膠樹 (Chinese)
Scientific Name: Hevea brasiliensis (Willd. ex A.Juss.) Müll.Arg.
Family: Euphorbiaceae
Natural Distribution: Amazon (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru)
Natural Habitat: More often in tropical rainforest riverbanks and areas with periodic flooding, ranging up to 2,000m above sea level. 
Description: Deciduous tropical mid-canopy to canopy tree that can grow over 30m in the wild (usually less than 15-20m in plantation), capable of growing branchless for at least 10m from base. The trunk can grow to 3m in diametre. Smooth palmate/trifoliate leaves in form of 3 leaflets; mature leaflets can grow over 30cm long. Petioles around 15cm. Can shed leaves once or twice a year, usually during Northern Hemisphere’s spring and or autumn (depends on local climate, usually just before rainy season), and before shedding the leaves starts to lose its green colour, turning yellowish and then finally turning red. 
Flower: Plant is monoecious. Flowers late spring in Northern Hemisphere (somewhere between late March to late May), and can flower up to twice a year. Flowering period is about a 2 weeks. Inflorescence paniculate axillary, flowers yellow to cream coloured. Female flowers have 3 carpels.  Usually more male flowers than females and female flowers usually slightly larger. Flower has sweet scent. 
Seeds: The 2-3cm long and wide seeds are brown with irregular black spots/stripes and has lustre. The recalcitrant seeds and should be sown as soon as possible (starts losing viability within a week). Fruiting season normally around September but can start earlier or extend to the next year. Mature fruit pod has 3 lobes (each lobe with one seed) is brown and roughly 6-7cm long. The seeds are toxic as they contain linamarin, which when ingested gets converted into the toxic hydrogen cyanide. Method of dispersal is through the ripe fruits bursting open to release the seeds. 

The rubber tree or Pará rubber tree is one of the primary source of natural rubber and is still commercially produced. The rubber from Hevea brasiliensis are manufactured to make some of the commonly seen daily products such as tyres, condoms, rubber gloves etc. Natural rubber plantations exists throughout the tropics around the world,  and the top 8 producing countries are all within tropical Asia. Thailand is currently the largest producer of natural rubber followed by Indonesia, Malaysia, India and Vietnam. This species is considered naturalized in some tropical countries around the world where it was initially introduced for harvesting natural rubber (considered as weed in Eastern African countries). The latex is harvested from trees older than 6-8 years old. The harvester (also known as tapper) makes multiple diagonal slits along the bark of the tree and let the latex sap drip into the collecting cups. The quality of natural rubber usually makes it a better choice than the cheaper synthetic rubber. There are sophisticated ways to grow the rubber trees in certain conditions to produce latex of higher quality. In the past years as the automobile industry grew, so did the demand for rubber plantations, which provided invaluable income to those in poverty, however the continual expansion of rubber monoculture plantations has some concerning environmental impact. Aside from the latex, the seeds are a source of oil and the wood can be a source of charcoal. 

2018/01/04, lucky fresh seed I collected on the 3rd of January 2018. This fresh seed still has the “shine”. There weren’t many seeds when I looked under the tree, most were rotten, some were infested with bugs.