Paullinia capreolata

Primary tabs

Paullinia capreolata

Description

Woody vine 1.5-25 m long. Stems terete, striate, lenticellate, tomentulose, glabrescent, producing abundant milky latex, reaching up to 15 cm diam. at base; cross section with a single vascular cylinder. Stipules early deciduous. Leaves pinnately 5-foliolate; petiole and rachis terete, unwinged, puberulent; petioles 4-9 cm long; petiolules 3-10 mm long, puberulent; rachis 1.8-4.5 cm long; leaflets chartaceous, glabrous or sometimes the abaxial surface sparsely appressed-pubescent or barbate on vein axils, elliptic to obovate, 6-15(27) × 2.2-4.2(12.5) cm, the base acute or attenuate in distal leaflet, obtuse to rounded in lateral ones, the apex obtusely acuminate or caudate, the margins entire or remotely serrate on upper ⅓ of blade; primary and secondary venation abaxially prominent; tertiary veins clathrate. Thyrses axillary or distal, racemiform, with puberulent or glabrous axes; bracts and bracteoles deltate, ca. 1 mm long; cincinni stipitate (1-4 mm long). Calyx tomentulosewith 4concave sepals, outer sepals rounded, ca. 1.5 mm long, inner sepals oblong, rounded at apex, ca. 3 mm long, the anterior sepal notched at apex; petals white, obovate, ca. 3 mm long, crenulate toward the apex, adaxially sparsely papillate; appendages hood-shaped, ⅔ as long as the petals, with a fleshy, yellow, bifid crest, and appressed-pubescent margins; disc of 2glabrous, oblong lobes; filaments slightly flattened, densely wooly-pubescent. Capsule depressed-globose or globose-trigonous, unwinged, yellow to orange, 1-seeded, short-stipitate, minutely pubescent or glabrous, 1.5-2.5 × 1.5-2.7 cm, woody-crustose, wrinkled when dried, pericarp 2-3 mm thick, endocarp densely wooly-pubescent. Seed oblate to depressed-globose, brown or dark brown, dull, non-sarcotestal, 1.2-1.5 cm wide.

Distribution

Guianas present, Southern America: Bolivia (Bolivia present); Colombia (Colombia present); Costa Rica (Costa Rica present); Ecuador (Ecuador present); Peru (Peru present); Venezuela (Venezuela present)
Known from Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela, the Guianas, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil and Bolivia (GU: 3; SU: 2; FG: 8).

Common Name

English (Suriname): fefifinga

Wood

Woody vine .1
1. 001

Notes

Collections of this species from the Guianas have been erroneously identified as P. clathrata Radlk. a closely related species.