紫花野木瓜 zi hua ye mu gua

Monoecious. Young stems and branches green, striate, mature ones grayish brown with rough bark. Petiole 3--6(--8) cm; leaf blade palmately 3--5-foliolate; leaflets oblong to obovate-oblong, 5--9(--11) × 2.5--5 cm, leathery, abaxially grayish green and densely whitish brown maculate, adaxially green, base obtusely rounded, margin crisp when dry, apex acuminate to obtusely rounded and cuspidate; secondary veins abaxially conspicuous. Corymbose racemes 2 or 3, 3--7-flowered; bracts persistent. Pedicel 2--5 cm. Sepals pale yellow basally with purple stripes or sometimes purple throughout; outer 3 sepals ovate-lanceolate, 10--15 × 3--5 mm, larger in female flowers; inner 3 sepals linear-lanceolate, 9--12 × 2--3 mm. Petals absent. Male flowers: filaments ca. 3 mm, connate into a tube; anthers ca. 4 mm; connective apical appendage hornlike, 2--3 mm. Female flowers: staminodes ca. 1 mm. Carpels ovoid-terete, ca. 4 mm. Stigma capitate, sessile. Fruit yellow at maturity, ellipsoid, colon-shaped when dry, 3--7 × 2--3 cm. Seeds blackish. Fl. Apr--May, fr. Sep--Oct.

* Dense forest along valleys, among shrubs by trailsides; 1000--1600 m. Taiwan.