Paullinia verrucosa
Content
Description
Woody vine or liana. Stems terete or obtusely pentagonous, ferruginous-tomentulose or appressed-pubescent, becoming glabrous and lenticellate with age, cross section with single vascular cylinder. Stipules deltate, minute, early deciduous. Leaves trifoliolate or pinnately 5-foliolate; petioles marginate, glabrous, 1.5-10 cm long; rachis marginate, seldom narrowly winged, 1-5 cm long; petiolules glabrous, 3-5 mm long; leaflets blade flattened or conduplicate, coriaceous, glabrous except for the abaxially puberulent midvein with minute hair domatia at junction with secondary veins, elliptic or oblong-elliptic, (2.5)4-16 × 2.5-6 cm (distal leaflet larger), the apex abruptly acuminate to nearly caudate, the base attenuate on distal leaflet, obtuse or rounded on lateral ones, the margins remotely serrate, the teeth subglandular, tertiary veins subclathrate. Thyrses axillary or distal, racemiform, with ferruginous-tomentulose axes; cincinni sessile, few-flowered; bracts and bracteoles inconspicuous. Calyx ferruginous-tomentose, sepals 4, concave, outer sepals ovate, ca. 1 mm long, anterior sepal obovate, ca. 4 mm long, retuse at apex; petals obovate, ca. 4 mm long; disc of two ovate, sericeous lobes, ca. 1 mm long. Capsules wrinkled, turning from green to orange or red, ferruginous, hirto-tomentose, woody, 1.2-1.5 cm long, short stipitate to nearly sessile, with ellipsoid outline, each valve with 3 longitudinal, wrinkled ridges (the central representing a short or remnant dorsal wing); endocarp puberulent. Seed usually one per fruit, nearly ellipsoid, ca. 10 mm long, dark brown or black, almost completely covered by a white sarcotesta, except for the slit along apex.