Description:
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Erect herb up to 1 m tall growing from a large tuberous rootstock. Stems stout, very viscid with subsessile capitate glands and stalked glands; tendrils absent. Leaves 3-foliolate; petiole up to 5 cm long, glandular like the stems; leaflets large, up to 38 x 16 cm, narrowly obovate, obovate or elliptic, apex acute or obtuse, base cuneate, margins crenate or undulate-crenate, glabrous above except for sessile glands, whitish-tomentellous beneath; petiolules up to 3 cm long; stipules up to 3 cm long, ovate-acuminate, viscid with sessile glands. Cymes terminal, trichotomous; peduncle up to 8 cm long, indumentum as for stems; pedicels up to 2 mm long, puberulous and glandular. Flower buds c. 3 mm long, oblong-cylindric, constricted just above the middle, puberulous and with subsessile glands. Petals green. Fruit plum-coloured, c. 1.8 x 1.2 cm (fresh), ellipsoid but tapering slightly to the apex, puberulous and glandular with subsessile and stalked glands. Seed 1, c. 1 x 0.7 cm, ellipsoid with a dorsal crest, surface rugose and rough. |
Literature:
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Mapaura, A. & Timberlake, J. (eds) (2004). A checklist of Zimbabwean vascular plants Southern African Botanical Diversity Network Report No. 33 Sabonet, Pretoria and Harare Page 83.
Wild, H. & Drummond, R.B. (1966). Vitaceae Flora Zambesiaca 2(2) Pages 470 - 471.
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