Description from
Flora of China
Piper szemaoense C. de Candolle.
Climbers roughly pubescent to glabrous except for rachis, dioecious. Stems yellow when dry, ridged. Petiole (0.3-)1.2-1.5 cm, sheathed at base only; leaf blade ovate-oblong or narrowly elliptic to elliptic, 7-23 × 3.5-8 cm, papery, densely glandular, base rounded to shortly tapered, ± symmetric to asymmetric, bilateral difference to 5 mm, apex acute to acuminate; veins 7 or 8, apical pair arising 1/4-2/5 way along midvein, alternate, others ± basal to ca. 1/8 way along midvein; reticulate veins abaxially prominent. Spikes leaf-opposed. Male spikes 7-14 cm at anthesis; peduncle 2.5-3.7 cm, longer than petioles; rachis conspicuously densely yellowish pubescent; bracts orbicular or suborbicular, 1-1.7 mm wide, peltate, stalk short. Stamens 3; filaments short; anthers ovoid, 2-loculed. Female spikes 6-8 cm at anthesis, 10-15 cm in fruit; peduncle usually thicker upward, ca. as long as male peduncles, thickened in fruit, densely and roughly orange pubescent; bracts as in male spikes but sessile. Ovary inserted within excavation of rachis; stigmas 4 or 5, linear, deciduous. Drupe subglobose to ovoid, 4-5 mm, densely tuberculate. Fl. Aug-Oct.
Hairy forms of Piper macropodum have been separated as P. szemaoense.
* Forests, particularly in wet places; 800-2600 m. Yunnan