Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Large lianas.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound. Alternate. Leaflets ovate, 6–12 cm long, 4–8 cm wide. Surfaces covered with irritating yellowish brown hairs; lower surfaces silky strigose. Leaflet margins entire. Petiolate. Stipules caducous. Leaflets stipellate.

Flowers: Flowers pseudoracemes elongate, pendulous, the flowers scattered along upper part of rachis. Flowers papilionaceous. Calyx lobes deltate, campanulate, bilabiate, the upper ones 6–7 mm long, the lowest one 11–13 mm long. Corolla bright yellow tinged red, 4–6 cm long, showy, variously colored, standard shorter than other petals, wings incurved, stiffened at apex, keel straight to slightly curved upward. Stamens 10; upper stamen distinct, the other 9 connate into a tube; anthers, dimorphic, 5 larger ones subbasifixed, alternating with 5 shorter anthers. Ovary superior; style 1, apical; ovules few; style filiform, glabrous apically; stigma small, terminal.

Fruit: Pods flat; ca; 10 cm long; 4–5 cm wide; with several transverse lamellae; the surface covered with irritating yellowish brown hairs; especially persistent near the lamellae. Seeds few; dark brown; subglobose; ca. 2.5 cm in diameter; hilum extending ca. ¼ of the circumference.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Sprawling over vegetation.

Elevation Range: Low elevations at least on O‘ahu, Maui, and Hawai‘i, but known to be definitely persisting only around Ulalena Hill, 500–700 m, East Maui.