Polygala triflora
Content
Description
Erect to prostrate, usually much-branched herb, sometimes woody at base, up to 40 cm high.
Leaves lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 5-50 by 1-5 mm, subsessile, mucronate, with recurved margins, shortly hairy, 1-nerved.
Flowers (3.5-)4-5 mm long, yellow or dull orange, with green and partly red alae.
Sepals lanceolate, acuminate and with a short mucro, cilio-late, alae asymmetric, 5-nerved.
Ovary quadrangular with rounded edges, stiffly hairy in upper part along the margin;
Capsule shorter than the alae, usually asymmetric, usually broadly elliptic, 3.5-4 by 2.5-3.5 mm, notched, narrowly winged, the wings with both short curved hairs as well as with long stiff hairs.
Seeds ellipsoid, at micropylar side with an unequally 3-lobed aril, black, hairy.
Distribution
Asia-Tropical: Maluku (Maluku present); New Guinea present; Philippines (Philippines present); Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka present); Sulawesi (Sulawesi present), Australasia, Continental SE. Asia present, Luzon present, Mindanao present, N. Borneo present, N. Sumatra present, Palawan present, Ternate present
Sri Lanka, continental SE. Asia, Australia; in Malesia: N. Sumatra, N. Borneo, Celebes, Moluccas (Ternate), Philippines (Palawan, Luzon, Mindanao), New Guinea.
Notes
ADEMA (/. c.) made some mistakes with this and the preceding species; see there. He stated that its occurrence in Malesia was uncertain, until 1969 when he mentioned its occurrence from New Guinea. My revision revealed that a considerable part of the collections identified by ADEMA as the former species, proved to belong to the present one. As holds for the preceding species, literature citation and distribution area of P. triflora must be somewhat inaccurate.
A single sheet from Java (in L) probably is wrongly labelled and collected in Sumatra.
For further notes on the synonymy, see under 75. P. polifolia.
A single sheet from Java (in L) probably is wrongly labelled and collected in Sumatra.
For further notes on the synonymy, see under 75. P. polifolia.