Tontelea laxiflora
Content
Description
Liana or occasionally a small tree; branchlets verrucose or striate, terete, purplish or greyish. Petiole 4-9 mm long; blades chartaceous to subcoriaceous, brownish green when dried, narrowly elliptic to ovate or obovate, 8-16.5 x 2.5-6 cm, margins entire (seldom serrulate), apex cuspidate(acumen to 1.5 cm long), base cuneate; primary vein prominent above, more conspicuously so beneath, secondary veins 6-9 per side, widely ascending, flattened above, prominulous beneath, tertiary veins densely reticulate, usually prominulous beneath. Inflorescence to 9 cm long, loosely and pseudo-dichotomously branched or peduncle to 1 cm long; branchlets very slender; bracts and bracteoles minute, acute; pedicels 3-15 mm long, sometimes articulate. Flowers fragrant, 4-5 mm diam. at anthesis; sepals fleshy, deltoid or orbicular, to 0.9 mm long, entire or erosulous; petals reflexed, membranous or slightly fleshy, greenish or yellowish, oblong-obovate or spathulate, 1.8-3 x 1-1.8 mm, papillose to erosulous; disk membranous, short-cylindric, 0.3-0.4 mm high; stamens suberect, filaments 0.8-1.4 mm long, anthers 0.2 x 0.3 mm, opening extrorsely; ovary depressed-globose, slightly 3-lobed, ovules 2 per locule, style 0.4-0.8 mm long, stigmas 3, bifid, the 6 lobes essentially equal, recurved, probably alternating with the stamens. Fruit on thickened pedicel and branch of inflorescence, ellipsoid, to 2.4 x 1.8 cm, pericarp leathery, yellowish green turning lemon-yellow or orange.