Triumfetta pilosa Roth

Malvaceae

Roth, A.W. (1821) Novae Plantarum Species : 223. Type: India, Heyne; holo: B (destroyed, fide Stafleu & Cowan 1983); iso: K-W?.

Usually flowers and fruits as a shrub about 1-2 m tall.

Leaf blades about 5-10 x 2.5-5 cm, petioles about 0.8-5 cm long. Both the upper and lower leaf blade surfaces scabrous, clothed in stellate hairs. Petioles clothed in glandular stellate hairs. Stipules triangular, hairy, about 3-4 mm long. Leafy twigs clothed in stellate and medifixed hairs.

Sepals linear, about 10 x 1 mm, outer surface densely clothed in stellate hairs. Petals narrowly obovate, about 7-8 mm long. Ovary about 1 mm diam., densely clothed in short hooked hairs or bristles. Ovary 5-locular, Ovules 2 per locule.

Fruits adhere to clothes. Fruits (including the spines) about 25 mm diam. Spines about 4-10 mm long, hooked at the apex. Fruits split into 4 segments each containing two seeds. Seeds brown, about 2.5-3 mm long. Cotyledons about 1 mm long, +/- orbicular, wider than the radicle. Radicle about 1 mm long.

Features not available.

Occurs in CYP, NEQ and CEQ. A plant of somewhat uncertain origin, perhaps introduced from India. Altitudinal range from near sea level to 1000 m. Usually grows in open situations or on the margins of rain forest or in wet sclerophyll forest.

Triumfetta nigricans F.M.Bailey, Queensland Agricultural Journal 5(4): 387(1899), Type: Herberton and Tully River, J.F. Bailey. Holo: BRI. Triumfetta suffruticosa Blume, Bijdragen tot de Flora van Nederlandsch Indie No. 7 : 113(1827), Type: in rupibus montium Salak et calcareis Parang.