B. colliculata

Culture

Endangered Status

Vulnerable VU D2

Original Botanical Description or Link to

Monoecious rhizomatous herb, 30–45 cm tall. Rhizomes elongate, stout, 8–12 × 1.2–2 cm, grayish with many fibrous roots. Stems cane-like, 25–35 cm long, 3–5 mm thick, dark brown-green, succulent, pilose. Leaves 3–5 per stem, alternate, lamina succulent when fresh, membranous when dry, asymmetric, ovate-lanceolate, 15–27 × 8–12 cm, base oblique cordate, apex acuminate, margin biserrate; adaxial surface waxy, dark green, slightly verrucous and sparely scabrid; abaxial surface reddish, scabrid and densely pilose on veins; venation palmate, veins 7–9, prominent beneath. Petioles 5–22 cm long, dark brown-green, fleshy, pilose. Stipules triangular, 12–22 × 3–6 mm, margin entire, apex acuminate, outer surface pilose, reddish-green. Inflorescences compound cymes, arising from axils of the leafy stem, branched 2–4 times, bisexual, 10–15 cm long, staminate flowers distal and pistillate flowers basal, protandrous. Peduncles 5–10 cm long, green-reddish to dark brown, terete, verrucose. Bracts lanceolate, 10–20 × 5–8 mm, apex acute, margin strigose, pilose on outer surface, glabrous on inner surface, pale green. Staminate flowers: pedicels 10–15 mm long, straight, recurved near apex, reddish, strigose; tepals 4, reddish, outer pair elliptic-orbiculate, 14–15 × 10–12 mm, apex obtuse-rounded, strigose on outer surface, inner pair elliptic-oblong, 8–10 × 3.5–5 mm, apex rounded to obtuse, glabrous; stamens ca 119, bright yellow, filaments free, cluster, 1.2–2.2 mm long, anthers elliptic-oblong, 1.8–2mmlong, dehiscing by longitudinal slits near the apex, apex rounded. Pistillate flowers: pedicels 10–15 mm long, dark red to green, sparsely villous, scabrid on surface; tepals 5, red, outer pair unequal, elliptic, 14–15 × 10–11 mm, apex rounded, sparsely strigose and scabrid on outer surface, inner 3 smaller, narrowly elliptic, 9–13 × 5–8 mm, apex rounded, glabrous to scabrid on outer surface; ovary green, red-brown toward on wings, few sparsely strigose, colliculate on surface (event distinctive on wings), with 3 unequal wings; dorsal wing broadly falcate-elongate or elongatetriangular, lateral wing triangular, apex acute; 2-locular, placentation axillary, two branches per locule; styles 2, connate at the middle into common stalk, dark yellow, stigma spiral and minutely papillose. Fruits green, globose, 20–25 × 50–55 mm (including wigs), strigose, colliculate on surface. Seeds numerous, ellipsoid, ca 0.4 × 0.25mm, reticulate, brownish-yellow.