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Aristolochia tomentosa Sims

Modern name

Aristolochia tomentosa Sims

A vigorous, deciduous climber 20 to 30 ft high, with very woolly young stems, leaves, and flowers. Leaves broadly ovate to roundish, heart-shaped at the base, mostly rounded at the apex; 3 to 8 in. long, often nearly as wide; dull pale green, only slightly downy above; leaf-stalk 1 to 3 in. long, woolly. Flowers solitary on a woolly stalk, which is 2 in. long, gradually thickening upwards. Perianth about 112 in. long, tubular, inflated at the base, resembling a Dutch pipe, 34 in. wide at the orifice, where it expands into three distinct lobes; the tubular part of the flower is greenish yellow, the throat dark brown, and the lobes yellowish. Flowers about midsummer. Fruits 2 in. long, cylindric, angled. Bot. Mag., t. 1369.

Native of S.E. United States; introduced in 1799. Although not so frequently seen in gardens as A. macrophylla, it is a useful climber for similar positions. Its leaves do not run so large, and it is very distinct in its woolly parts, in the more deeply and distinctly three-lobed limb of the calyx, and in the absence of a bract on the flower-stalk.


Genus

Aristolochia

Other species in the genus