Cyclea hypoglauca

Species: Cyclea hypoglauca

English Name:  Glaucous-leaved Cyclea

Chinese Name: 粉葉輪環藤

Family: Menispermaceae

Description:

Vines, woody when old, glabrous except for hairy leaf axils. Branchlets slender. Petiole slender, 1.5-4 cm; leaf blade usually conspicuously peltate, ovate-triangular to ovate, 2.5-7 × 1.5-4.5 cm or slightly more, papery, both surfaces glabrous or sparsely whitish puberulent, base truncate to rounded, margin entire, slightly involute, apex acuminate, palmately 5-7-veined, slender, reticulation not very conspicuous. Inflorescences axillary. Male inflorescences scattered spicate; rachis unbranched or sometimes shortly branched at base, slender, glabrous; bracts small, lanceolate. Male flowers: sepals 4 or 5, free, obovate or obovate-cuneate, 1-1.2 mm; petals 4 or 5, usually connate, cup-shaped, rarely free, 0.5-1(-1.5) mm; synandrium slightly exserted, 1-1.2 mm. Female inflorescences thicker, thyrsoid; rachis conspicuously twining, up to 10 cm. Female flowers: sepals 2, rotund, ca. 0.8 mm in diam.; petals 2, unequal, large one ca. as long as sepals; ovary glabrous. Drupes red, glabrous; endocarp ca. 3.5 mm, subtruncate or slightly emarginate, abaxially bearing 3 rows of tubercles, row bordering condyle sometimes inconspicuous.

Photos used under a Creative Commons license

References:

Wu ZY, Raven PH, Hong DY (eds) (2008). Flora of China, Volume 7: Menispermaceae through Capparaceae. Science Press, Beijing, and Missouri Bot Garden Press, St. Louis