''Freycinetia percostata'', commonly known as climbing pandan, is a plant in the family

Pandanaceae Pandanaceae is a family of flowering plants native to the tropics and subtropics of the Old World, from West Africa to the Pacific. It contains 982 known species in five genera, of which the type genus, ''Pandanus'', is the most important, with s ...

native to

New Guinea New Guinea (; Hiri Motu: ''Niu Gini''; , fossilized , also known as Papua or historically ) is the List of islands by area, world's second-largest island, with an area of . Located in Melanesia in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, the island is ...

, the

Solomon Islands Solomon Islands, also known simply as the Solomons,John Prados, ''Islands of Destiny'', Dutton Caliber, 2012, p,20 and passim is an island country consisting of six major islands and over 1000 smaller islands in Melanesia, part of Oceania, t ...

and the

Northern Territory The Northern Territory (abbreviated as NT; known formally as the Northern Territory of Australia and informally as the Territory) is an states and territories of Australia, Australian internal territory in the central and central-northern regi ...

and

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

in Australia. It is a root climber with stems up to a maximum of diameter. Leaves are long and narrow with parallel venation, and are arranged in closely packed spirals. are present at the leaf base and the margins are finely toothed. The species is

dioecious Dioecy ( ; ; adj. dioecious, ) is a characteristic of certain species that have distinct unisexual individuals, each producing either male or female gametes, either directly (in animals) or indirectly (in seed plants). Dioecious reproduction is ...

, meaning that (functionally female) and (functionally male) flowers are borne on separate plants. Inflorescences consist of spadices and are surrounded by orange bracts. Fruit are a

multiple fruit Multiple fruits, also called collective fruits, are fruiting bodies formed from a cluster of flowers, the ''inflorescence''. Each flower in the inflorescence produces a fruit, but these mature into a single mass. After flowering, the mass is call ...

consisting of numerous red

berries A berry is a small, pulpy, and often edible fruit. Typically, berries are juicy, rounded, brightly colored, sweet, sour or tart, and do not have a stone fruit, stone or pit (fruit), pit although many wikt:pip#Etymology 2, pips or seeds may be p ...

about wide.

Conservation

This species is listed as vulnerable under the Queensland Government's

Nature Conservation Act The ''Nature Conservation Act 1992'' is an act of the Parliament of Queensland, Australia, that, together with subordinate legislation, provides for the legislative protection of Queensland's threatened biota. As originally published, it prov ...

References

External links

View a map
of herbarium collections of this species at the

Australasian Virtual Herbarium The ''Australasian Virtual Herbarium'' (AVH) is an online resource that allows access to plant specimen data held by various Australian and New Zealand herbaria. It is part of the Atlas of Living Australia (ALA), and was formed by the amalgama ...

View observations
of this species on

iNaturalist iNaturalist is an American 501(c)(3) nonprofit social network of naturalists, citizen scientists, and biologists built on the concept of mapping and sharing observations of biodiversity across the globe. iNaturalist may be accessed via its web ...

View images
of this species on Flickriver.com {{Taxonbar, from=Q15576416 percostata Flora of Papuasia Flora of the Northern Territory Flora of Queensland Taxa named by Elmer Drew Merrill Taxa named by Lily May Perry Plants described in 1939