粉叶野木瓜 fen ye ye mu gua

Dioecious. Branches brown to blackish when dry, striate. Petiole terete, 4--14 cm, less than 2 mm in diam.; leaf blade palmately 3--5-foliolate; petiolules 2--4 cm; leaflets elliptic, broadly elliptic, or sometimes obovate, 8--14 × 6--9.5 cm but lateral ones smaller, leathery, abaxially grayish green and farinaceous, adaxially dark green but yellowish green when dry, base rounded to slightly cordate, margin revolute, apex acute, obtuse, rounded, or sometimes emarginate and cuspidate; primary veins 3, abaxially strongly prominent, adaxially plane or slightly impressed; secondary veins 3--5 pairs, prominent on both surfaces; tertiary veinlets reticulate, prominent on both surfaces. Racemes 2--5-flowered; bracts persistent; peduncle 2--3(--5) cm. Pedicel 2--4 cm, ± slender. Male flowers: sepals pale yellow, base adaxially purple; outer 3 sepals lanceolate, ca. 18 × 4--5 mm; inner 3 sepals linear, ca. 14 × 1.8--2 mm. Filaments ca. 3 mm, connate into a tube; anthers free, ca. 3 mm; connective apical appendage hornlike, ca. 3 mm. Pistillodes small, subulate. Female flowers not seen. Fruit yellow at maturity, black when dry, ellipsoid, 3--4 × 2--3 cm, densely and minutely tuberculate, apically slightly curved and beaked. Fl. Apr--May, fr. Jul.

* Open forest by streams along valleys; 300--500 m. NE Guangdong.