Paullinia cupana (seed)

Botanical Voucher Specimen

Paullinia cupana Kunth Source: Images courtesy of the C.V. Starr Virtual Herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden	Paullinia cupana Kunth Source: Images courtesy of the C.V. Starr Virtual Herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden	Paullinia cupana Kunth Source: Images courtesy of the C.V. Starr Virtual Herbarium of the New York Botanical Garden

Macroscopic Characteristics

Paullinia cupana Kunth is a climbing shrub with alternate compound impari-pinnate leaves ... The flowers are of yellowish color, growing in spicate panicles. The leaves are long petioled, the leaflets being 5 to 6 inches long by 2 or 3 inches wide, and sinuate dentate on the margins. The fruit is ovoid or pyriform and about the size of a grape, and contains 1 to 3 seeds which resemble small horse chestnuts. The seeds, which look like small horse-chestnuts, are lenticular and almost thorny, and invested with a flesh-colored arillus, which is easily separable when dry. Source: United States Dispensatory (1918)