Palmeria gracilis
Content
Description
Woody liana, reaching 20 m, young parts covered with a lax indumentum of simple hairs, together with small stellate hairs especially on the flowers.
Leaves usually ovate with broad rounded, cordate, or cuneate base, and a long narrow apiculum, more rarely elliptic with a short apiculum, 4-14.5 by 1.8-11.5 cm, membranaceous, midrib and lateral veins well-defined, upper surface with the remnants of simple hairs and small stellate hairs, or becoming glabrous except for simple hairs along the midrib and sometimes the principal veins and the margin, undersurface with a dense or sparser covering of curved simple hairs mixed with a varying number of small stellate hairs;
Inflorescence axillary and terminal, either simple pleio-chasia, few-flowered and with a delicate rachis, or branching to the second degree with rather stouter rachis, 5-20 cm long, often produced profusely on lateral branches of limited growth;
Distribution
Asia-Tropical: New Guinea (Irian Jaya present), Idenburg R present, Japen I present, Lake Habbema present, Papua New Guinea present, Vogelkop Peninsula present, W. & E. Sepik, Southern, Western & East-ern Highlands, Morobe & Central Provinces present
Malesia: Irian Jaya (Vogelkop Peninsula, Japen I., Lake Habbema, Idenburg R.); Papua New Guinea (W. & E. Sepik, Southern, Western & East-ern Highlands, Morobe & Central Provinces).
Uses
For wrapping tobacco before being smoked in pipes or as cigarettes. When burnt to a fine ash, used as salt.
Notes
One of the most widespread and frequent species, recognized by the simple curved bristles on the undersurface of the leaf. The size of the leaf is varied, as is the density of the indumentum, but the variability has no geographical or apparent ecologi-cal basis. The flowers are cream, in males with whit-ish stamens. The red or dark drupes are borne on a light red receptacle.