西南轮环藤 xi nan lun huan teng

Paracyclea wattii (Diels) Yamamoto.

Vines, woody when old, 2-6 m. Old stems gray, irregularly and longitudinally fissured; branchlets slender, striate, glabrous or puberulent. Petiole slender, 3-5 cm or slightly longer, glabrous; leaf blade peltate or not, variously cordate, broadly ovate, or lanceolate, 6-12 × 3-5.5 cm or slightly longer, papery, slightly glaucous, abaxially densely setose or papillate, adaxially glabrous and glossy, base cordate, rounded, obtuse, or subtruncate, margin entire, apex long acuminate to mucronate. Inflorescences racemelike, axillary, composed of 1-3 cymelets; peduncle slender, 2-10 cm, glabrous; bracts 1-1.5(-2) mm, apex sparsely pubescent. Male flowers: sepals 5 or 6, lanceolate, oblong or elliptic, unequal, 1-1.5 × 0.3-0.7 mm; petals 3-6, unequal, rotund, broadly ovate or ligulate, 0.3-0.6 mm; synandrium 0.5-1 mm, anthers 4. Female flowers: sepals 2, black, obovate-oblong or oblanceolate-oblong, 1.5-2 mm; petals 2, ovate or broadly ovate, 0.5-0.7 mm, slightly fleshy; ovary subglobose, stigma many lobed. Drupes oblate, glabrous; endocarp ca. 5.5 mm, tapered at base, abaxially bearing 2 or 3 rows of slightly projecting tubercles.

Forest margins, shrublands. Chongqing (Nanchuan), Guizhou (Anlong), Yunnan [NE India].