Rapona
Accepted name/Authority/Place of publication:
RAPONA Baillon, Hist. Pl. 10: 326. 1888.
Tribe:
Poraneae
Type Species:
Rapona tiliifolia (Baker) Verdc.
Habit:
Lianas; older stems with red-brown bark and pale lenticels; young stems slender, finely pubescent.
Leaves:
Simple, petiolate; blade broadly ovate, discolorous, base shallowly cordate to truncate, apex acuminate-cuspidate, mucronate.
Inflorescences:
Thyrsoid, axillary or terminal, pedunculate, bracteose; bracts linear, tiny.
Flowers:
Sepals unequal, obovate, apex acuminate-obtuse, outside pubescent with ciliate margins, inside glabrous or pilose on the upper part (outer 2 sepals only), accrescent in fruit. Corolla funnelform, yellowish white or white with yellow center, limb 5-toothed, midpetaline bands pubescent toward their summit, otherwise glabrous. Stamens included, unequal, basally dilated and fused to corolla tube, hirsute, free, filamentous and glabrous above; anthers broadly elliptic, rounded. Pistil included; disc cylindrical, 5-lobed, fused to ovary; ovary obpyriforme, glabrous, 2-celled, each cell 2-ovulate; style simple, branched above for 2/5 its length; stigmas 2, ovoid.
Pollen:
Oblate spheroidal, 3-colpate, surface finely psilate.
Fruits:
Ellipsoidal, indehiscent, covered in long, erect, dark brown hairs, tightly enclosed in the accrescent calyx; the outer 2 sepals apically prolonged into papery, reticulate-nerved, narrowly elliptic wings; inner 3 acute, apex recurved, not winged.
Seeds:
1, ellipsoidal, brown, glabrous.
Distribution:
Madagascar. map
Countries:
Madagascar
Common names and uses:
Malagasy: mafaianany; mafaimenarovy; rainibola fotsy; rililo; vatry.
Number of Species:
1
References:
Deroin, T. 2001. Flore de Madagascar et des Comores, Convolvulaceae 171: 42–43.
Verdcourt, B. Kew Bull. 27: 293. (1972).
Contributors:
The fruit structure is one of the most peculiar in the Convolvulaceae. Verdcourt (1972) pointed out that the long hairs covering the fruit wall are irritating when they contact the skin.