''Mitrephora petelotii'' is a species of

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

in the family Annonaceae. It is native to

Vietnam Vietnam or Viet Nam ( vi, Việt Nam, ), officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,., group="n" is a country in Southeast Asia, at the eastern edge of mainland Southeast Asia, with an area of and population of 96 million, making i ...

. Aruna Weerasooriya and Richard Saunders, the botanists who first formally described the species, named it in honor of the French botanist

Paul Alfred Pételot Paul Alfred Pételot (1885–1965) was a French botanist and entomologist, whose primary scholarly focus was on medicinal plants in Southeast Asia. Some sources list his date of death as 1940, but several herbaria specimens are recorded as bein ...

, who collected the

holotype A holotype is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism, known to have been used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of several ...

specimen that they examined.

Description

It is a tree reaching 8 meters in height. Its branches have

lenticel A lenticel is a porous tissue consisting of cells with large intercellular spaces in the periderm of the secondarily thickened organs and the bark of woody stems and roots of dicotyledonous flowering plants. It functions as a pore, providing a ...

s. Its leathery, oval-shaped leaves are 6-12.5 by 2-4.5 centimeters and come to a point at their tips. The leaves are smooth on their upper surfaces, while their undersides are slightly hairy. The leaves have 6-13 pairs of secondary veins emanating from their midribs. Its petioles are 3-7.5 by 1-1.7 millimeters. Its flowers are arranged in groups of 3 or fewer on a

rachis In biology, a rachis (from the grc, ῥάχις [], "backbone, spine") is a main axis or "shaft". In zoology and microbiology In vertebrates, ''rachis'' can refer to the series of articulated vertebrae, which encase the spinal cord. In this c ...

opposite the leaves. Each flower is on a fleshy, slightly hairy

pedicel Pedicle or pedicel may refer to: Human anatomy *Pedicle of vertebral arch, the segment between the transverse process and the vertebral body, and is often used as a radiographic marker and entry point in vertebroplasty and kyphoplasty procedures ...

that is 10.5-17.5 by 0.8-1.3 millimeters. The pedicels have an oval, basal bract that is 0.5 by 0.3 millimeters, and another middle bract that is oval and 1-1.9 by 1.1-1.9 millimeters. Its flowers have 3, green or brown, oval-shaped

sepals A sepal () is a part of the flower of angiosperms (flowering plants). Usually green, sepals typically function as protection for the flower in bud, and often as support for the petals when in bloom., p. 106 The term ''sepalum'' was coined b ...

that are 2-3 by 2-3 millimeters. The outside of the sepals are densely hairy, while their inner surfaces are smooth. Its 6 petals are arranged in two rows of 3. The oval-shaped outer petals are 9.5-17 by 7.5-16.5 millimeters and come to a point at their tip. Both surfaces of the outer petals are slightly hairy. The inner petals are 8.5-10.5 by 5.5-8.5 millimeters with a basal claw. The outside surface of the inner petals is slightly hairy while the tip of the inner surface has long hairs. It has numerous

stamens The stamen (plural ''stamina'' or ''stamens'') is the pollen-producing reproductive organ of a flower. Collectively the stamens form the androecium., p. 10 Morphology and terminology A stamen typically consists of a stalk called the filame ...

that are 0.9-11 by 0.4-0.6 millimeters. The flowers have 8 free carpels that are 1.2-1.4 by 0.7-0.8 millimeters and covered in fine hairs. The carpels have 12-14

ovule In seed plants, the ovule is the structure that gives rise to and contains the female reproductive cells. It consists of three parts: the ''integument'', forming its outer layer, the ''nucellus'' (or remnant of the megasporangium), and the fe ...

s arranged in two rows. Its stigma are shaped like narrow, inverted cones that are initially yellow, but turn purple. The fruit are attached to the pedicel by stipes that are 6-7 by 1.9-2.1 millimeters and covered in grey-brown hairs. The round, smooth fruit are 14.5-15.5 by 12-13.5 millimeters with a whitish waxy surface and covered in sparse, short hairs.

Reproductive biology

The pollen of ''M. petelotii '' is shed as permanent tetrads.

References

petelotii Flora of Vietnam Plants described in 2005 Taxa named by Richard M.K. Saunders {{annonaceae-stub