Hylenaea comosa
Content
Description
Large liana (rarely a tree with scandent branches); young twigs with reddish or purplish, peeling bark. Petiole stout, rugose, 5-14 mm long; blades chartaceous to subcoriaceous, elliptic to oblong-ovate, 9-26 x 5-12 cm, margins entire, slightly revolute, apex gradually acuminate, base rounded or subcordate; primary vein prominent on both surfaces, yellowish in dried leaves, secondary veins 7-10 per side, also yellowish, prominulous above, prominent below, widely arcuately ascending, tertiary veins densely reticulate, prominulous on both surfaces. Panicles axillary, often in groups of 3-8, and terminal, (2-)4-14 cm long; peduncle 0.5-2.5 cm long, lateral branches slender, numerous, several times irregularly branched, resulting in a hair-like mass of capillaceous branchlets, bearing flowers laterally and a single distal one; pedicels very slender, ca. 1 mm long. Flowers very numerous, most of them abortive, normal ones 1.5-2 mm diam.; sepals membranous, deltoid to lanceolate, 0.4-0.6 mm, entire; petals spreading at anthesis, yellowish or greenish yellow, membranous, elliptic-oblong, 0.8-1.2 x 0.4-0.7 mm, dark-veined, entire; disk 0.6-0.8 mm diam., 0.1-0.2 mm high; stamens erect to reflexed, filaments 0.3-0.4 mm long, anthers ca. 0.1 x 0.2 mm; ovary 0.4 mm diam., ovules 4-6 per locule, style 0.2-0.3 mm long. Fruit large, glaucous green; mericarps elliptic, 8-10 cm long, 4.5-7.5 cm wide, 1-1.5 cm thick, rounded or emarginated at apex, obtuse and swollen at base, (lanceolate when seeds are abortive), pericarp coriaceous, coarsely costate, ca. 1 mm thick, not involute; seeds chestnut brown at maturity, often abortive, embryoniferous part more or less ellipsoid, to 4-8.5 x 1.5-2 cm, smooth, but coarsely granular along raphe, basal wing thin-coriaceous, narrow alongside embryo, gradually widening towards base, ca. 5 x 3.5 cm, variable.