''Bauhinia tomentosa'', also known as yellow bauhinia or yellow bell orchid tree, is a species of plant in the family

Fabaceae The Fabaceae or Leguminosae,International Code of Nomenc ...

. It is found in South Africa, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Tropical Africa, India, and

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

Description

Yellow bauhinia is a small tree with a maximum height of . It has drooping slender branches with multiple scrambling stems. The bark is greyish, smooth, and sometimes hairy, which gives its specific name ''tomentosa''. Greenish leaves are deeply divided and elliptic in nature; margin entire. Flowers are bell-shaped with large, yellow petals with a dark maroon patch at the base. The fruit is a pale-brown pod. Extracts of the plant's roots have '' in vitro'' antimicrobial activity against

Gram-positive bacteria In bacteriology, gram-positive bacteria are bacteria that give a positive result in the Gram stain test, which is traditionally used to quickly classify bacteria into two broad categories according to their type of cell wall. Gram-positive bact ...

References

tomentosa Flora of Mozambique Flora of Zimbabwe Flora of India (region) Flora of Sri Lanka {{Fabaceae-stub