1. Home
2. Ayenia aculeata

Ayenia aculeata

Botanic Family

Malvaceae

Author

(Jacquin) Christenhusz & Byng

Common Names

• Zarza (El Salvador
• Panama)
• Tezac (Mayan)
• Yax-kix (Mayan)
• Zarza Hueca (C. America)
• Uña de Gato (Costa Rica)
• Rabo de Iguana (Panama)
• Rangay (Panama)

Geographical Habitats

• Belize
• Bolivia
• Acre
• Amazonas
• Bahia
• Goiás
• Maranhão
• Mato Grosso
• Pará - Brazil
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Ecuador
• El Salvador
• Guatemala
• Honduras
• Mexico
• Nicaragua
• Panama
• Peru
• Venezuela

Natural Habitats

• Secondary vegetation
• riverside
• lakeside
• thickets
• montane areas
• woodland edges
• banana plantations

Flowering Times

• Mar
• Apr
• Jun
• Oct (Bolivia) Jul (Brazil)

Fruiting Times

• Apr
• Jun (Bolivia)

Thorny climber, twining liana or erect shrub with hollow angled puberulent stems to 4m, 15mm recurved prickles on branches & lower leaf surfaces. Entire or dentate, leaves to 120mm x 60mm, glabrous to densely pubescent, prickly on ribs & petioles, young leaves often blotched silver. 3-flowered axillary umbels or cymes of 6mm white tinted reddish-purple on tips or greenish-yellow scented flowers, sepals 5mm long with segments 3mm long, petals with appendages 3mm long, petal claw 1.5mm x 1mm. Fruit a spiny glabrous or pubescent capsule to 11mm x 8mm.

Further References

• Mobot
• Neotrop
• FB
• G. Don
• FOG
• Botanicus
• FOPE
• Standley
• Kew