Triumfetta bogotensis Dc.

Shrub 1-2 m. high, sometimes small tree up to 4 in. high, the branches covered with short stellate and long hirsute simple hairs especially when young. Leaves with a petiole 2-7 cm. long, covered with short stellate and long hirsute simple hairs, the blade broadly elliptic, usually 3-lobate, sometimes only obscurely so, rounded to subcordate at the base, the apex acuminate, 7-14 cm. long and 5-11 cm. wide, the margins irregularly and more or less bluntly serrate, the upper surface slightly hirsute and mostly with long simple hairs, the lower surface scatteringly puberulous with appressed stellate hairs and some spreading simple hairs, 5-palminerved, the nervation slightly prominent beneath. Inf lorescences axillary or oppositifolious, the cymes of 2-3 cymules, the bracts lanceolate to narrowly elliptic, 3-10 cm. long and 1-5 cm. wide, the bracteoles narrowly lanceolate, ca. 3 mm. long, long-hirsute, the peduncles 4-7 mm. long, the pedicels 3-4 mm. long, both long-hirsute. Flowers 8-13 mm. long, hermaphrodite, the sepals linear. acute, the apical appendage ca. 1.8-2.5 mm. long, 8-13 mm. long (the appendages included) and ca. 1.5 mm. wide, fleshy, leng-hirsute without, glabrous within; petals 5, narrowly obovate, ciliate at the base, more or less acute at the apex, 7-9 mm. long and ca. 2 mm. wide, yellow, sometimes orange; gono-phore ca. 0.75 mm. long, bearing 5 distinct suborbicular glands subequalling the gonophore, the urceolus undulate, ciliate and ca. 0.5 mm. long; stamens 25-30, the filaments ca. 4-7 mm. long, glabrous, the anthers ca. 1 mm. long; ovary sub-orbicular, ca. 1 mm. in diam., densely covered with uncinate spinules; style fili-form, 6-7 mm. long, glabrous; stigma obscurely 3-lobulate. Fruit spheroid on the slightly accrescent gonophore, the body ca. 4 mm. in diam., stellate-hirsute, the spines about 75, ca. 3-4 mm. long, retrorsely pilosulose, the spinules uncinate, 3-or 4-leculate, each cell 2-seeded; seeds lenticular, 2-3 mm. long and ca. 2 mm. wide.

Moist, wet, or dry thickets, sometimes in pine-oak forest, at elevations from 500-2,200 metres in Guatemala.

The mucilage from the plant is used to clarify syrup.

Can be grown by seedlings.