Begonia palmata - Palmate-Leaf Begonia

Palmate-Leaf Begonia is a perennial herb, 20-90 cm tall. Stem is erect, brown hairy, floccose-velvet-hairy, or woolly. Leaves are basal and on stem; stipules falling off, narrowly ovate, up to 2.8 x 1.8 cm, margin fringed with hairs, tip cuspidate; leaf-stalk 5-40 mm, brown hairy, floccose-velvet-hairy, or woolly; blade asymmetric, ovate or oblate-round, 12-33 x 6-27 cm, above bristly, sometimes woolly, venation palmate, 5-10-veined, base oblique, slightly heart-shaped to heart-shaped, margin remotely and shallowly finely toothed, shallowly to distinctly divided; lobes 3-7, tip tapering to long tapering. Inflorescences are woolly. Male flowers: flower-stalk 1-2 cm; tepals 4, white to pink, outer 2 obovate to round, 1-2.6 x 0.8-2.4 cm, below hairy or woolly, inner 2 inverted-lanceshaped to narrowly obovate, 0.8-2.4 cm x 5-9 mm; stamens 100-200; filaments 0.8-2.4 mm; anthers narrowly obovoid, 1.9-2.3 mm. Female flowers: flower-stalk 1-3 cm; tepals 5, unequal, inverted-lanceshaped to round, largest 0.8-2.4 x 0.8-2.2 cm, below velvet-hairy, smallest 0.8-2.1 cm x 4-9 mm; ovary brown woolly or hairy, 2-loculed; placentae axile, bilamellate; styles are 2, fused at base; stigmas 2-cleft, spiraled. Capsules are nodding, obovoid, about 15 x 8 mm, unequally 3-winged; lower wing oblong or oblique-triangular, 1.1-3.2 cm; lateral wings much smaller. Palmate-Leaf Begonia is found in Nepal to East HImalaya, China and SE Asia. Flowering: June-August.