Vines. Roots and stems with yellow wood. Petiole long, swollen at both ends; leaf blade ovate or oblong, not peltate, palmately 3-5-veined. Inflorescences often on older leafless stems, lax panicles. Male flowers: sepals 8-12, in 3 or 4 whorls, free, imbricate, outer 2-6 minute, slightly unequal, inner 6 conspicuously larger, subequal, fleshy, margins thin; petals absent; stamens 3 or 6, free, filament thickened, anthers small with pollen cells divaricate, dehiscing longitudinally and obliquely; pistillodes absent. Female flowers: sepals and petals as in male; staminodes 3 or 6, narrowly oblong to elliptic; carpels 3, erect, saccate, ovoid, style extremely short, subterminal. Drupes 1-3, orangish yellow, oblong-obovate to ellipsoidal, style scar subterminal; exocarp smooth; endocarp ± woody, abaxially protuberant, adaxially with a narrow longitudinal groove; condyle forming narrow groove adaxially. Seed subellipsoid; embryo horseshoe-shaped in transverse section, embedded in endosperm; cotyledons broad and extremely thin, foliaceous, much longer than radicle.
More
Woody climbers with yellow wood, entirely glabrous. Older stems with greyish buff bark, irregularly and coarsely striate; young stems smoothly and finely striate. Leaves ± elliptic to ovate, base 3(-5)-nerved with the main basal laterals running alongside the midrib for several (-15) mm before curving outwards, with 2-4 pairs of distal lateral nerves. Inflorescences: lax panicles, often ramiflorous. Male flowers: 6 main sepals with 2-3 minute outer ones; petals 0; stamens 3 or 6, the filament thick with a prominent collar around the base of the anthers, dehiscence longitudinal to oblique. Female flowers: sepals as in male; petals 0; staminodes 6, subulate; carpels 3, stigma cleft-like. Drupes radiating from a small knob-like carpophore, drying coarsely wrinkled; endocarp subellipsoidal with ventral narrow longitudinal groove; seed subellipsoidal, with narrow longitudinal groove, endosperm abundant around the embryo, cotyledons thin, foliaceous.
Both species have yellow wood but field-notes of F. tinctoria also mention the presence of a white latex or sticky sap. Although not mentioned in the field-notes for F. recisa, it may well occur in that species also.
Home
