Paullinia rugosa
Content
Description
Woody vine to 20 m long. Stems 4-5-costate, densely hirto-tomentose, glabrescent, producing scanty to copious milky sap, irregularly 4-5-lobed when mature; cross section with a single vascular cylinder. Stipules persistent, 1.5-2 cm long, deeply dissected, tomentose, with ovate to circular outline. Leaves pinnately 5-foliolate; petioles and rachis terete, unwinged, hirto-tomentose, petioles 6-9.5 cm long, rachis 3-6 cm long; leaflets chartaceous, adaxial surface glabrous except for the hirtous midvein, abaxial surface hirtous, elliptic, oblong or obovate, 6-17 × 3.2-8.5 cm, the base cuneate on distal leaflets, obtuse to rounded on lateral ones, the apex acuminate, the margins remotely denticulate, ciliolate, the teeth mucronate; tertiary veins clathrate. Thyrses spicate, densely flowered, hirtous; bracts ovate, ca. 4 mm long, tomentose; bracteoles lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, ca. 4 mm long, overlapping, tomentose; cincinni sessile, few-flowered, congested along inflorescence rachis; pedicel ca. 1 mm long, hirto-tomentose, articulate at the very base. Calyx yellowish green, of 5concave sepals, the outer sepals ca. 2.5 mm long, ovate-rounded, hirto-tomentose, the inner ones 4.5-5 mm long, ovate to rounded, sericeous-tomentose; petals white, spatulate, ca. 6 mm long, adaxially sparsely papillate; appendages hood-shaped, ⅔ as long as the petals, with a fleshyyellow crest and wooly margins; disc of 2rounded lobes, hirtous; filaments hirtous. Capsules orange-red, depressed-globose or globose, unwinged, 6-costate, coriaceous-crustose, densely hirto-tomentose, long-stipitate, apiculate at apex, 1-2-seeded, the locule 1-1.3 cm long, the stipe 5-7 mm long; endocarp lanose. Seed oblate, dark brown to black, with a white, sarcotesta on most of its surface