斑叶野木瓜 ban ye ye mu gua

Monoecious. Stems green tinged with purple. Outer winter bud scales broadly ovate-triangular; inner scales lanceolate, 2--3 cm. Petiole 3.5--9 cm; leaf blade palmately 5--7-foliolate, sometimes 3- or 4-foliolate apically on branches; petiolules 0.5--2 cm; leaflets lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, 5--10(--12) × 1--3 cm, leathery, abaxially pale green and densely and conspicuously pale colored maculate, adaxially dark green and dull, base obtuse, cuneate, or sometimes rounded, margin thickened and slightly revolute, apex long acuminate; veins abaxially prominent, adaxially inconspicuous. Racemes several, 5--6 cm, pendulous; bracts persistent; peduncle and pedicels slender. Flowers pale yellowish green. Male flowers: pedicel ca. 2 cm. Outer 3 sepals ovate-oblong, 1.5--1.8 × ca. 0.7 cm, apex obtusely acuminate; inner 3 sepals linear-lanceolate, 12--17 × 2--2.5 mm. Petals spreading, oblong, 2.5--3 mm. Filaments connate into a tube; anthers straight, ca. 3 mm; connective apical appendage hornlike, as long as anther. Female flowers: pedicel ca. 2 cm. Outer 3 sepals adaxially streaked purplish red, lanceolate, 1.8--2.1 cm; inner 3 sepals linear-lanceolate, ca. 2 cm. Petals 2--3 mm. Staminodes 6; connective apically appendaged. Carpels conical-terete. Fruit ellipsoid to oblong, 4--6 × ca. 2.5 cm. Seeds brown when dry, subtriangular, slightly compressed. Fl. Aug--Oct.

* Open forest on mountain slopes, sunny place by streams along valleys; 600--1000 m. S Fujian, C Guangdong.