天仙藤 tian xian teng

Large woody vines up to 10 m or longer; wood bright yellow. Stems brown; branchlets and petioles longitudinally striate. Leaves inconspicuously peltate; petiole (4-)5-14 cm, leaf blade oblong-ovate, sometimes broadly ovate or broadly ovoid-subglobose, 10-25 × 2.5-9(-13) cm, leathery, glabrous, base rounded or obtuse, sometimes subcordate or cuneate, apex subcuspidate or acutely acuminate, palmately 3-5-veined, usually with 3 pairs of distal lateral veins prominent abaxially. Inflorescences arising from leafless old stems, paniculate; male inflorescences lax, up to 30 cm. Male flowers: pedicels 2-3 mm; perianth variable, outermost whorl minute, ca. 0.3 mm, inner whorl 0.6-1 mm, innermost whorl elliptic, concave, ca. 2.5 × 1.5-1.8 mm; stamens 3, ca. 2 mm, filaments thick and broad, pollen cells subreniform. Female flowers not seen. Drupes yellow, oblong-elliptic, rarely subobovate, 1.8-3 cm; exocarp wrinkled when dry. Fl. spring and summer, fr. autumn.

Forests. SW Guangdong, S Guangxi, SE Yunnan [Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam].

This species is used medicinally.