山露兜 shan lu dou

Freycinetia batanensis Martelli.

Lianas, scandent or scrambling. Stems procumbent or prostrate, to 10 m or longer. Branches with aerial roots, 0.5-5 cm wide, glabrous. Leaves elongate, linear-lanceolate, 10-60(-200) × 0.8-4 cm, leathery, base narrowed, margin sharply antrorsely spinulose toward tip and base, sometimes entire in upper part, with scattered spines along midvein abaxially, apex acuminate. Spadices 2-4, racemose, on stout peduncle ca. 5 cm; spathes yellow. Female peduncles 10-15 × 1.4-1.8 cm; spathes to 6 cm. Fruit syncarpous, globose, cylindric, or ovoid, 2.5-11 × 1.5-2 cm, composed of numerous dense drupes; drupes ovoid or irregularly angled with asymmetric edges, 0.5-1 × 0.4-1 cm. Seed cylindric.

Thickets and cliffs near seashores. Taiwan [Japan (Ryukyu Islands), Philippines (Batan Island)].

Stone (Blumea 16: 369. 1968) observed that the Philippine taxon Freycinetia batanensis is a "mere" variety, "if not in fact synonym," of F. formosana, and that F. batanensis differs from the Philippine taxon F. williamsii Merrill in having a berry non-rostrate instead of rostrate. H. L. Li (Fl. Taiwan 5: 821. 1978) and other workers have recognized both F. formosana and F. williamsii as occurring in Taiwan, with F. batanensis included in the synonymy of F. williamsii, whereas we follow Stone in considering F. batanensis to be a synonym of F. formosana. According to Fl. Taiwan (loc. cit.) and FRPS (8: 13-14. 1992), F. formosana has leaves 60-90 × 2-3 cm and globose syncarps, whereas F. williamsii is smaller, with leaves 10-20 × 0.8-1.2 cm and with ovoid syncarps.