Straggling slender shrub or scandent, 3–3.6(–9) m. tall; branches in whorls of 3 and said to bear rather stout spines in whorls of 3; branchlets chestnut-brown, lenticellate, ± longitudinally ridged, with ± adpressed bristly hairs but soon glabrescent.. Leaves ? paired or in whorls of 3; blades oblong, 6–15 or more cm. long, 3–9 cm. wide, sharply acuminate at the apex, rounded to truncate at the base, with rather sparse short stiff hairs above, finely adpressed pubescent beneath particularly on the raised venation; petiole 5–8 mm. long, adpressed hairy; stipule-bases triangular with ± thin margins, 3–4 mm. long, with subulate appendage 5–7.5 mm. long, eventually deciduous.. Inflorescences axillary ± many-flowered distichous cymes; peduncle ± 5 mm. long; pedicels 4–6 mm. long, lengthening and becoming much thicker in fruit, all axes adpressed pubescent.. Calyx-tube campanulate, 1.5 mm. long, adpressed pubescent; lobes linear-lanceolate, 2–2.5 mm. long, thin.. Corolla not seen.. Disk depressed hemispherical.. Ovary 2-locular.. Immature fruits subglobose, ± 8 mm. diameter, crowned with persistent calyx-lobes, with few obscure scattered hairs.. Ripe fruits compressed, bilobed, up to 2 cm. wide (fide collector), 1.6 cm. long and wide when dry, on pedicels up to 3 cm. long, bluntly warted in dry state due to rugae on pyrenes.. Figs. 132/13, p. 754 & 148.
Home