长穗胡椒 chang sui hu jiao

Herbs erect and shrubby (probably), most parts with reddish brown hairs, dioecious. Stems 3-4 mm thick, furrowed when dry, glabrescent. Petiole 5-13 mm, densely pubescent, prophyll to 3 cm, glabrous; leaf blade elliptic-lanceolate to obovate, strongly asymmetric, 14-25 × 6-11 cm, thinly papery, without evident glands, abaxially densely brown pubescent, nearly tomentose on veins, adaxially sparsely minutely scabrid, base strongly obliquely cordate, basal lobes overlapping, bilateral difference to 3 mm, apex long acuminate; veins 8-10, 3 on narrower side, up to 7 on wider side, apical pair arising 2-6 cm above base, alternate, nearly reaching leaf apex, next pair often also above base; reticulate veins lax, transversely oblong, slightly raised abaxially. Male spikes not seen. Female spikes leaf-opposed, 27-30 cm × 6-7 mm in fruit; peduncle 4-4.5 cm, glabrous; rachis pubescent; bracts orbicular, peltate, margin pale when dried, 1.5-1.7 mm in diam. Ovary ± cylindric; stigmas 3 or 4, reflexed, very short and inconspicuous. Drupes densely packed, prismatic-cylindric, ca. 2 × 1.5 mm. Fr. Apr.

* Wet places within forests. S Yunnan (Xishuangbanna Daizu Zizhizhou)

Plants of this species were named as Piper spirei in FRPS, but examination of the type of that name has shown that it belongs to P. boehmeriifolium.