South Pacific Palm

Annuals 4-15 cm tall. Stem simple, slender, with dense recurved trichomes especially apically. Leaves 1-3.5 cm, with sparse recurved trichomes; rachis slender; leaflets 4-10 pairs; leaflet blades orbicular-ovate, 2.5-8 × 2.5-5 mm with basal one smallest, base almost symmetric to asymmetric. Umbels sessile, several flowered; bracts lanceolate, as long as pedicels. Pedicel ca. 3 mm. Sepals narrowly lanceolate, ca. 4 mm. Capsule ellipsoid-obovoid, ca. 3 × 2 mm. Fl. and fr. Aug-Nov.

Yunnan [India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, New Guinea, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam; tropical Africa, Madagascar].

Mountain valleys, forests; 800-1600 m.

Biophytum apodiscias (Turczaninow) Edgeworth & J. D. Hooker; B. petersianum Klotzsch; B. sessile (Buchanan- Hamilton ex Baillon) R. Knuth; Oxalis apodiscias Turczaninow; O. gracilenta Kurz; O. petersiana (Klotzsch) C. Müller; O. sessilis Buchanan-Hamilton ex Baillon.

Annual herb, up to 40 cm. Stem simple, hairy, with a terminal rosette of pinnate leaves. Leaves with 3-10 pairs of leaflets, decreasing in size with the terminal pair largest, somewhat stiff and thickly textured. Inflorescences in 2-5-flowered umbels peduncles of up to 9 cm long. Flowers yellow or orange; pedicels shorter than the length of the calyx.

Common

Widespread in tropical Africa, Madagascar and tropical Asia.

Biophytum umbraculum (the South Pacific palm) is a plant species in the family Oxalidaceae. It is reported from India, China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma (Myanmar), New Guinea, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, tropical Africa, and Madagascar. The species is an annual herb up to 15 cm tall, bearing sessile umbels.

Biophytum umbraculum Welw., Apont. 55: 590. 1859.