Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Perennial vines, climbing by circinate tendrils borne near apex of peduncles.

Stems: Stems ribbed, branched, yellow short–villous, sometimes sparsely so.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound (bi-ternate). Alternate. Leaflets rhombic–ovate, ovate, or lanceolate, 2.5–10 cm long, the terminal leaflet of each primary leaf division larger than those of lateral pair. Surfaces sparsely to moderately yellowish pilose, more densely so along the veins on lower surface. Margins coarsely and somewhat irregularly lobed. Petiolate. Stipules present, small and deciduous.

Flowers: Flowers in axillary corymbs. peduncles 7–14.5 cm long. Flowers bisexual (perfect) or unisexuat (and then plants monoecious), zygomorphic. Calyx of 4–5 sepals; outer sepals broadly obovate, ca. 2 mm long, the inner pair obovate, 8–9 mm long. Corolla of 4 petals, cream to pale yellow, obovate, 7–9 mm long, all with basal scales and crests; nectary disk with 2 erect lobes. Stamens 8, unilateral; filaments pilose; anthers abortive in pistillate flowers. Ovary superior, 3-celled, absent or vestigial in staminate flowers; ovules 1 per cell, ascending; style short, 3-lobed.

Fruit: Capsules ellipsoid to ellipsoid–ovoid; membranous; strongly inflated; 3–angled; 4.5–6.5 cm long; glabrous or nearly so. Seeds 3; subglobose; 6–7 mm in diameter; aril suborbicular.

Ploidy: 2n = 20

Habitat:

Elevation Range: