Description:
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Prostrate herb growing from thick perennial rootstock; stems c. 1 m long, brownish or whitish tomentose or pubescent, sometimes glandular; tendrils absent; leaves simple, sessile or subsessile; leaflet-lamina up to 15 x 13 cm, broadly oblong-elliptic (large older leaves sometimes shallowly 3-lobed and broadly ovate), apex rounded and base shallowly cordate, upper surface glabrous or with a few hairs on the nerves, lower surface whitish or brownish tomentose or hairy only on the nerves and veins; stipules up to 1 cm, lanceolate, densely pubescent; cymes axillary, trichotomous; peduncle up to 4(7) cm long, pubescent or tomentose, branches of inflorescence sometimes with stalked subcapitate glands; pedicels 2-3 mm long, pubescent; bracts and bracteoles c. 2 mm long, lanceolate, pubescent; flower bud 2-4 mm long, constricted near the middle, glabrous or puberulous; calyx entire, pubescent at the margins, 0.5 mm long; petals red; ovary glabrous; style c. 1.5 mm long, apex minutely 2-fid; fruit purple-black, 1 x 0.8 cm, ellipsoid-globose, glabrous; seed 1, c. 8 x 6 mm, ellipsoid, deeply foveolate. |
Literature:
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Burrows, J.E. & Willis, C.K. (eds) (2005). Plants of the Nyika Plateau Southern African Botanical Diversity Network Report No. 31 SABONET, Pretoria Page 285.
Wild, H. & Drummond, R.B. (1966). Vitaceae Flora Zambesiaca 2(2) Pages 462 - 463.
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