Peponium caledonicum Engl.

Perennial herb. Stems prostrate, stout, sulcate, usually more or less pubescent with usually short hairs, glabrescent, up to at least 5 m long. Leaves firmly herbaceous drying somewhat pergamaceous or papyraceous, in outline cordate-orbicular, usually with a broadly rounded shallow basal sinus and decurrent in the middle on the petiole, 5-partite to about or somewhat beyond the middle, when mature glabrous above or nearly so, occasionally somewhat scabrid, finely pubescent beneath but glabrescent and pubescence ultimately only persistent on main veins, 6-12 cm long and broad; lobes usually distinctly contracted at the base and approximate to somewhat overlapping, oblong or obovate to suborbicular, usually rounded or obtuse, rarely (and in this case often only the central one) acuminate or apiculate; basal ones and rarely the lateral ones with additional lobule; the margin rather coarsely crenate-dentate with usually acute and calloso-mucronate teeth; petioles densely and shortly hairy, glabrescent, 2-3 cm long. Male flowers racemose, rarely solitary; common peduncle densely pubescent, up to 12 cm long, whole raceme up to 25 cm long and up to about 12-flowered; pedicels of racemose flowers usually erect, pubescent, articulated at the apex, up to 2 cm long, those of solitary flowers (sometimes also found at the base of a raceme in same axil) up to 10 cm long; bracteoles ovate or oblong, usually dentate, herbaceous, hairy, 3-7 mm long, often stipitate; receptacle obconical, pubescent, 16-18 mm long, 6-8 mm wide at the apex, sepals erect, subulate, 7-8 mm long; petals 24-30 mm long, puberulous. Female flowers subsessile; ovary fusiform, densely and shortly hairy. Fruit on a very stout pedicel under 1 cm long, oblong-fusiform or subcylindric with conical-acuminate apex, green when immature, glabrous, smooth and red when ripe, 7-10 cm long and 2-3.5 cm in diam. Seeds black, 7-8 mm long, 4-5 mm broad and 1-1.5 mm thick.