Fissistigma polyanthum - Many-Flowered Uvaria

Many-Flowered Uvaria is a large woody climber, with stem dark brown, branchlets rufous woolly. Leaves are simple, alternate, broadly elliptic to oblong, 10-18 x 3-4.5 cm across, base slightly heart-shaped, margin entire, tip shallow tapering, papery or somewhat leathery, dark green, shining, hairless above, paler glaucous or minutely velvet-hairy beneath, lateral veins 16-20 on either side of the midrib, almost parallel, leaf-stalk velvet-hairy when young, hairless when mature, about 0.8-1 cm long. Flowers are bisexual, few flowered about 3-7 in leaf-opposed cymes, fragrant, orange, flower-cluster-stalks woody, hairless, about 5 mm long, flower-stalks slender, minutely rufous woolly, about 4-8 mm long, bracts basal and median, velvet-hairy, ovate, tip blunt, about 2 mm long. Sepals are 3, broadly ovate, base fused, tip somewhat pointed, densely velvet-hairy outside, hairless inside, about 2.5-4 x 3 mm across. Petals are 6 in 2 series, outer petals ovate-oblong, tip somewhat pointed, thick, fleshly, reddish orange, rufous velvet-hairy outside, hairless inside, about 6-7 x 5-6 mm across, inner petals shorter and smaller, base concave, finely velvet-hairy at tip outside. Stamens are numerous, about 1 mm long. Ripe fruit is eaten. Many-Flowered Uvaria is found in East Himalaya, NE India, Bangladesh, China, Myanmar, Tibet, Vietnam. Flowering: January-October.