Lepiderema sp. Impulse Creek (A.B.Pollock 73)

Provisional HISPID phrase name.

Small tree to 8 m. Branches and stems glabrous.

Terminal buds glabrous and sometimes viscid. New growth pink. Leaves alternate, compound, with 6-10 leaflets, paripinnate; leaf axis or rhachis with a terminal process or appendage, rhachis narrowly winged. Stipules absent. Petiole 2.5-4 cm long, sometimes rhachis wings extending to petiole or reduced to longitudinal ridges; petiolules often indistinct on upper surface, present as a short pulvinus below. Leaflet blades elliptic, occasionally obovate, 3-7.5 (10) cm long, 1.5-3 cm wide, base cuneate to attenuate often slightly asymmetrical, margin entire, apex acute to acuminate. Leaflets glabrous, venation more or less flush on upper surface.

Inflorescence functionally unisexual and monoecious, ramiflorous, racemose, racemes often in fascicles (with racemes arising from the same point along a branch). Flowers lightly perfumed. Male flowers 3-4 mm diameter. Calyx lobes 5, shortly connate at base, sepals irregular, with smaller lanceolate outer sepals, and larger broadly ovate inner sepals, concave or cymbiform, 1.5-2 mm long, 1-2 mm wide, glabrous. Petals 5, free, ovate or lanceolate, concave, about 2.5 mm long, glabrous, except for fringe of hairs along incurving margin at base. Stamens 7-8, staminal filaments to about 1 mm long, densely hairy in bottom half. Disk glabrous. Female flowers, none seen.

Fruit a 3-valved capsule, globose to slightly obcordate in outline, about 1.4-1.7 cm long, 1.2-1.3 cm diam., calyx lobes persistent at the base. Green when immature, becoming orange-red at maturity. Seeds 3, brown, about 10 mm long, completely enclosed in a yellow or orange aril.

Stem glabrous. First pair of leaves compound, about 4 leaflets per leaf, each ± sessile, margins crenate towards leaf apex. Compound leaf rhachis winged, ending in a fine tip. Tenth leaf stage not seen.

Endemic to CEQ in Conway National Park and only known from a few collections around the same locality. Grows in complex notophyll vine forest.

1208