Paullinia latifolia
Content
Description
Liana 8-10 (30) m long. Stems pentagonal, striate, puberulent or tomentulose, becoming terete, glabrous, and lenticellate with age, reaching 3 cm in diam. at base, producing scanty to abundant watery to milky exudate; cross section with a single vascular cylinder. Stipules deltoid, 3-5 mm long. Leaves pinnately 5-foliolate; petiole and rachis unwinged, terete, tomentulose; petioles 5-12 cm long; rachis 2-6 cm long; petiolules tomentulose, 3-6 mm long, up to 15 mm on distal leaflet; leaflets chartaceous to coriaceous, glabrous or sparsely pubescent, especially along veins, oblong-elliptic, elliptic, or obovate, 4.5-19 × 2.7-6 (-10) cm (the distal leaflet larger), the base acute, obtuse or rounded, the apex acuminate to obtusely apiculate, the margins remotely glandular-serrate or less often subentire; tertiary veins clathrate. Thyrses axillary or cauliflorous, racemiform, fasciculate, 7-11 cm long, tomentulose; bracts and bracteoles deltate, minute; cincinni sessile, few-flowered. Sepals 5, the outer ones ca. 1.2 mm long, inner ones ca. 2.2 mm long; petals narrowly spatulate, ca. 3.5 mm long; disc elongated, tomentulose, forming a torus at base of androecium, with twooblong, glabrous lobes, ca. 0.5 mm long; pistil ferruginous-tomentose. Capsule obovoid, globose, ovoid, or ellipsoid, unwinged, slightly chartaceous, orange-red, 6-ridged, ferruginous-tomentose, long-stipitate (1.7-2 cm long), the endocarp wooly-pubescent.