14. Mucuna lamellata Wilmot-Dear, Kew Bull. 39: 53. 1984.
褶皮黧豆 zhe pi li dou
Climbing vines, to 5 m. Stems slightly woody, glabrous or sparsely adpressed or spreading hairy. Leaves 17-27 cm; petiole 7-11 cm with abundant hairs like on stem; stipels 2-3 mm, slender; leaflets thinly papery, adaxially glabrous or with very sparse long adpressed hairs, hairs abaxially sometimes less sparse, lateral veins 4-6 pairs, rather straight but curving near margin; terminal leaflet rhombic-ovate, 6-13 × 4-9.5 cm, base rounded or slightly cuneate, apex acuminate; lateral leaflets 8-14 cm, width ratio of abaxial to adaxial halves 2:1, base truncate. Inflorescence axillary, 7-27 cm, nodes 6-15, all crowded into upper 1/5-1/2 of inflorescence; lower part of inflorescence without bracts or scars; pedicels 7-8 mm, densely clothed with spreading reddish short fine hairs and light yellow adpressed hairs; bracts and bracteoles lanceolate, linear-lanceolate, or narrowly ovate, ca. 7 × 2 mm, hairy outside, late caducous often only shortly before flowering. Calyx densely clothed with dense pale short fine hairs inside and outside and sparse irritant reddish bristles outside; tube 5-6 × 8-10 mm; lateral lobes ca. 2 mm, lowest lobe 3-4 mm, all narrowly triangular, upper lip often indistinct. Corolla deep purple or reddish brown (often drying brown rather than black); standard broadly elliptic, 2-2.5 cm; wings oblong, 3.2-4 cm × 9-12 mm, often as long as keel, apical 2/3 of adaxial surface with abundant long fine golden hairs; keel (3.6-)4(-4.5) cm, apex sharply curved. Legume narrowly oblong, narrowing to base and apex and scarcely indented transversely between seeds, asymmetric in outline, slightly downcurved, 6.5-10 × 2-2.5(-3) cm, 5-8 mm thick, leathery, densely covered with reddish irritant bristles when young, later with pale spreading fine pubescence and sparser reddish bristles, both margins with pair of wings 2-4 mm wide but of irregular width giving slightly jagged outline, both surfaces with 12-16 well-spaced obliquely transverse narrow thinly textured winglike lamellae of irregular height to 3 mm, sometimes erratically interrupted, sometimes running into wings. Seeds 2-5, deep reddish brown or black, ca. 11 × 9 mm, markedly laterally flattened, ca. 7 mm thick, smooth; hilum black, length ca. 5/8 of circumference; aril absent. Fr. Apr-May.
● Riversides, thickets, roadsides, mountain valleys; 400-1500 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hubei, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Zhejiang.
Mucuna lamellata is distinguished by its rhombic-ovate leaves, its corolla wings with conspicuous long hairs on most of the adaxial surface, and its lamellate legume that is smaller and relatively much narrower than most lamellate-fruited species. Its fruit is similar only to M. cyclocarpa, which differs in the cordate leaflets, the usually larger almost spherical seeds, and the legume distinctly indented between seeds. Mucuna hainanensis sometimes has fairly short but always wider legumes with more markedly oblique lamellae, seeds twice the size, and ovate leaves. Flowers on dried specimens are often distinctively "dirty brown" in color.