轮环藤 lun huan teng

Cyclea racemosa f. emeiensis H. S. Lo & S. Y. Zhao.

Vines, woody when old. Branches slender, striate, puberulent or subglabrous. Petiole slender, shorter than or subequal to lamina, puberulent; leaf blade peltate or subpeltate, ovate-triangular or triangular-rotund, 4-9 × 3.5-8 cm or slightly longer, papery, abaxially usually densely puberulent and sometimes pilose, adaxially sparsely puberulent or subglabrous, base subtruncate to cordate, margin entire, apex mucronate to caudate-acuminate, palmately 9-11-veined, together with fine reticulation prominent abaxially. Inflorescences narrowly thyrsoid, densely flowered, 3-10 cm or longer; rachis slender, densely puberulent, branched part less than 1 cm; bracts ovate-lanceolate, ca. 2 mm, apex caudate-acuminate, puberulent abaxially. Male flowers: calyx mitriform, 4-lobed almost to base, 2 lobes broadly ovate, 2.5-4 × 2-2.5 mm, apex inflexed, 2 lobes suboblong, 1.8-2 mm wide, apex inflexed; corolla cup-shaped or shallowly cup-shaped, margin entire or 2-6-lobed almost to base; synandrium ca. 1.5 mm, anthers 4. Female flowers: sepals 1 or 2, base saccate, middle part contracted, 1.8-2.2 mm, apex slightly expanded and inflexed; petals 1 or 2, minute, often rotund, ca. 0.6 mm in diam.; ovary densely bristled, stigma 3-lobed. Drupes oblate, sparsely bristled; endocarp 3.5-4 mm in diam., abaxially bearing 3 rows of conical tubercles; condyle conspicuously globose. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Aug.

● Forests, forest margins, shrublands. Fujian, N Guangdong, C and N Guizhou, W Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, ?S Shanxi, C, E, and SE Sichuan, S Zhejiang.

The name Cyclea racemosa f. emeiensis (峨眉轮环藤 e mei lun huan teng) has been applied to material from around Emei Shan with glabrous mature leaves.