Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Reclining or weakly climbing vines.

Stems: Stems often swollen at the nodes, terete (cylindrical), 4–angled or –ridged, primary stems 30–60 (–100) dm long, glabrous or nearly so below, antrorsely puberulent in the inflorescence, the hairs usually reddish purple, 0.1–0.4 mm long.

Roots: Fibrous root system.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades lanceolate to ovate or oblong–elliptic, 4–12 cm long, 1.5–4 cm wide. Apex acute to attenuate. Base leaf bases often connate around the stem, base acute to broadly obtuse. Blades coriaceous, green to yellowish green, with only the midvein evident. Margins slightly thickened, with a few scattered minute excrescences, each usually with a retrorsely hooked hair 0.01–0.15 mm long. Midvein ± slightly excentric, usually a weakly looping vein near the margins. Petioles 0.2–0. 7 cm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescence terminal, with 20–92 flowers, 10–50 cm long, pendent, diffuse, the internodes and pedicels often purple or purple–tinged; bracts green, sometimes purple–tinged, subulate, the lowermost of the central axis sometimes ovate to elliptic, 5–15 mm long, those of branches and flowers 3–8 mm long; pedicels 8–24 mm long at anthesis, elongating to 20–40 (–50) mm long in fruit, conspicuously asymmetrically flattened. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Sepals 4.2–7 mm long, ovate, green purple toward base and apex, thick and opaque, strongly reflexed and convex in proximal ¼, producing transverse bulge, the distal part shallowly concave to shallowly navicular, oriented at ca. 30° to 60° angle or ca. 150° angle to the pedicel, abaxial side slightly keeled, glabrate to sparsely puberulent with reddish purple hairs 0.1–0.25 mm long, especially toward the base, margins weakly scarious, ciliate, apex abruptly attenuate. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens 10; filaments dimorphic, the antisepalous whorl 6.4–9 mm long, the alternate whorl 5–7 .5 mm long; anthers subequal, those of the antisepalous whorl 1.15–1.25 mm long, of the alternate whorl 1 mm long, yellow. Ovary superior, 1-celled; ovule placentation free-central; styles 3–6.

Fruit: Capsules 4.5–7 mm long; very broadly ovoid or ovoid–globose. Seeds numerous; 1–1.2 mm long; suborbicular; asymmetrical; compressed; the surface smooth; under high magnification with minute depressions; persistent on the placenta; and retained in the undehisced capsule; perisperm starchy; hard or rarely soft; true endosperm absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Wet forests.

Elevation Range: 915–2,050 m.