Pentaphragma grandiflorum Kurz

Stem usually robust, up to 2½ m high and 1 cm thick, glabrous or sparsely pubescent. Leaves + obliquely elliptic, up to 45 by 20 cm, cuneate at base, shortly acuminate or apiculate at apex, shallowly denticulate or serrulate at margin, membranous when dry, glabrous above, finely puberulous to glabrescent below; nerves c. 6 pairs; petiole up to 10 cm, glabrous or puberulous. Inflorescences arising mostly singly from 1-4 upper axils, shortly subscorpioid when young, becoming lax and elongate at anthesis, up to 6 (rarely 10) cm, long-or short-peduncled. Bracts very variable, sometimes small and inconspicuous, sometimes large, lanceolate or elliptic, up to 3 by 1 cm. Flowers extremely variable, 3.5-9.5 cm long. Calyx-tube subcylindric or very narrowly obconic, 3-8½ cm by 1-4 mm, very gradually attenuate below into the pedicel (and indistinguishable from it until fruit develops), sometimes conspicuously 5-ridged, glabrous or puberulous. Sepals very variable, from linear-oblong, 12 by 2 mm, acuminate, to ovate, 29 by 14 mm, subacute or rounded, white. Corolla fleshy, choripetalous or almost so, segments elliptic-obovate, 8-12 by 3-5 mm, rounded or acute, glabrous, ± erect, often recurved at apex, yellow. Filaments c. 1 mm; anthers c. 2 mm. Style about 2 mm; stigma oblong, 3 by 2 mm, 5-ridged.

Damp primary rain-forest at low and medium altitudes (up to 1000 m), on limestone as well as sandstone; fl. &fr. throughout the year.

Uses. A recent Philippine collector suggests (in sched.) that the flowers are sufficiently showy to render the plant suitable for ornamental purposes.