钩叶藤 gou ye teng

Plectocomia barthiana Hodel; P. cambodiana Gagnepain; P. kerriana Beccari.

Stems clustered, to 35 m, 1-9 cm in diam. Leaf sheaths green with dark brown tomentum initially, with yellowish brown, needlelike spines to 2 cm, solitary or usually borne in short rows; petioles absent or 2-10 cm; rachis to 3 m; pinnae 25-40 per side of rachis, broadly lanceolate, with prominent mid- and submarginal veins, not spiny along margins, rarely with few small spines, irregularly arranged in clusters of 2 or 3 pinnae, spreading in different planes, gray abaxially; middle pinnae 20-55 cm, 1.5-5 cm wide at mid-point; cirri 0.5-1.5 m. Inflorescences to 15 per stem, branched to 2 orders, each inflorescence with to 6 pendulous primary branches, these 75-100 cm; rachillae subtended by prominent, ± rectangular bracts 2.5-5 × 2-2.5 cm, glabrous or with few whitish gray, appressed hairs adaxially; male flowers with 6 stamens; female flowers with stigmas to 6 mm. Fruits globose to ellipsoid, beaked, 2-2.3 cm in diam.; fruit scales fringed only, lacerate apices mostly breaking off except where protected by persistent perianth.

Lowland to montane rain forests; below 1200 m. Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan [Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam].

Records of Plectocomia assamica Griffith from China (e.g., FRPS 13(1): 53. 1991) were probably based on a misidentification of this species.