藤金合欢 teng jin he huan

Mimosa concinna Willdenow, Sp. Pl. 4: 1039. 1806; Acacia sinuata (Loureiro) Merrill (1935), not Jacques (1860); M. sinuata Loureiro.

Climbers, scandent shrubs, or small trees. Branchlets and leaf rachises gray tomentose; prickles abundant, minute, hooked. Stipules deciduous, ovate-cordate, 3-8 × 1.5-6 mm; leaf 10-20 cm; pinnae 6-18 pairs, 8-12 cm; glands near base of petiole and one between uppermost pinnae; leaflets 15-25 pairs, glaucous abaxially, greenish adaxially, linear-oblong, 8-12 × 2-3 mm, membranous, with a wrinkled appearance when dry, both surfaces hirsute or glabrescent, margin ciliate, midvein near upper margin. Heads globose, 9-12 mm in diam., arranged in a panicle; branches tomentose. Flowers white or yellowish, fragrant. Calyx funnel-shaped, ca. 2 mm. Corolla slightly ex­serted. Ovary glabrous or sericeous, stipitate. Legume brown, strap-shaped, 8-15 × 2-3 cm, fleshy, with wrinkled surfaces, sutures straight or slightly sinuate, seeming to break into seg­ments. Seeds 6-10. Fl. Apr-Jun, fr. Jul-Dec.

Thin forests, thickets; 200-1100 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Yunnan [tropical Asia].

This plant is important for its tannins and is used medicinally.

Because Merrill did not mention any type specimens of Acacia sinuata (Loureiro) Merrill, based on Mimosa sinuata Loureiro, the name is regarded by us as dubious (see Nielsen, Adansonia, n.s., 19: 349. 1980).