无须藤 wu xu teng

Natsiatum sinense Oliver, Hooker’s Icon. Pl. 19: t. 1900. 1889.

Bark gray or yellow-gray, smooth, conspicuously lenticellate; branchlets gray-brown, terete, with sparse orbicular or oblong lenticels, coarsely yellow-brown puberulent; annual branches light green, yellow puberulent; winter buds terminal or axillary, conical, densely yellow-brown pubescent. Petiole 2-7.5 cm, puberulent, glabrescent; leaf blade abaxially light green, adaxially dark green, ovate, triangular-ovate, or cordate-ovate, 4-13 × 3-9 cm, adaxially yellow-brown puberulent, glabrescent, adaxially also densely minutely granular, lateral veins 6 pairs, like midvein adaxially prominent, abaxially slightly concave, base cordate or rarely truncate, margin sparsely acutely serrate or densely serrate, apex long acuminate. Cymes many flowered, 2-8 cm, yellow-brown pubescent; peduncle 1-2.5 cm; flower buds obovoid, ca. 3 mm. Flowers small; pedicels 3-5 mm. Calyx dark brown, deeply 5-lobed; lobes oblong, ca. 1 mm, outside densely yellow-brown pubescent. Petals green, lanceolate, ca. 5 × 1.5 mm, outside pubescent, inside puberulent, apex acuminate with reflexed caudae. Filaments 1.5-2 mm, glabrous; anthers yellow, subglobose; glands oblong, shorter than 0.5 mm. Ovary ovoid, ca. 1 mm; style terete, ca. 1 mm; stigma 4-lobed. Drupe green when young, red or red-brown when mature, 1.5-1.8 cm, polygonous reticulate-lacunose when dry. Seeds albuminous; cotyledons elliptic. Fl. Apr-May, fr. Jun-Aug.

● Forests, twining on trees; 1200-2100 m. Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan (Emei Shan), Zhejiang.