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Uncaria tomentosa

Botanic Family

Rubiaceae

Author

(Willdenow ex Roemer & Schultes) de Candolle

Common Names

• Bejuco de Gavilán ( Venezuela)
• Cat's Claw
• Casha or Garabato or Garabato Colorado or Bejuco de Agua or Paotati or Pahuetati Mosha (Shipiboconibo)

Geographical Habitats

• Belize
• Bolivia
• Brazil
• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• Ecuador
• French Guiana
• Guatemala
• Guyana
• Honduras
• Nicaragua
• Panama
• Peru
• Suriname
• Trinidad
• Venezuela

Natural Habitats

• Moist forest
• coastal
• floodplain
• riverine forest
• riverside
• evergreen rain forest
• thickets
• swamps

Flowering Times

• Jan-Apr (Nicaragua
• Costa Rica)

Fruiting Times

• Mar-Jul (Nicaragua)
• Apr-Sep (Costa Rica)

Liana or tree to 30m with quadrangular stems, glabrate branchlets with hooked thorns to 20mm long. Leaves glabrous above whitish tomentulose or glabrate beneath, downy nerves above to 155mm x 90mm. Terminal or axillary panicles to 25mm diameter with bracts & bracteoles, fragrant whitish or orange to yellow flowers 6mm long, lower peduncle converted to axillary hooks, puberulent calyx 2mm long, tube 0.5mm long, calyx lobes to 0.3mm x 0.4mm, corolla tube to 10mm long, yellow pubescent outside with lobes 1.8mm x 0.8mm. Trigonous capsule to 80mm long, longitudinally ribbed & puberulent, armed with stout recurved spines.

Further References

• Mobot
• NYBG
• Neotrop
• The Plant List 2
• Botanicus
• Rub Col
• NAF
• Kew
• Flora Costaricensis
• FOPE
• Gleason & Moldenke
• Standley
• PMAP