Tiliacora acuminata - Tapering-Leaf Tiliacora

Tapering-Leaf Tiliacora is a large woody climber, 5-8 m tall; stems from a woody base, sparsely finely velvet-hairy to hairless, striped. Leaves are ovate, sometimes lanceshaped, bluntly rounded or flat to subheart-shaped at base, pointed to tapering at tip, 4.5 - 22 x 4 - 14 cm, slightly larger in male plants than in female plants, hairless; basal nerves 3-5, nearly palmate; lateral nerves 2-3 pairs; leaf-stalks 1.5 - 5 cm long, hairless, striped-grooved. Inflorescences in leaf-axils, 1 - many-flowered stalked racemose cymes, velvet-hairy, 2 - 21 cm long; flower-cluster-stalks about 1 cm long. Male flowers yellow; sepals usually 9, 3 in each whorl, broadly elliptic, hairless; inner ones 1 - 1.5 x 0.9 - 1.5 mm; petals 6, obovate, concave, 1 - 1.5 mm long, bright yellow, hairless; stamens 6, free, 3 - 3.5 mm long; anthers splitting by longitudinal slits. Female flowers: sepals and petals as in male; carpels 8-12, about 1 mm long, hairless. Drupes oblong-ovoid to obovoid, subcompressed, 10-12 x 6-7 mm, hairless; style-scar subbasal; endocarp thin, obscurely netveined on surface. Tapering-Leaf Tiliacora is found in India, Sri Lanka and SE Asia. Flowering: April-December.