Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Scandent shrubs or lianas.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound (pinnately trifoliate). Tardily deciduous. Veins parallel. Petiolate. Stipules present, small. Leaflet stipels conspicuous.

Flowers: Flowers few to several on a short, warty, thickened axis, the axes in axillary pseudoracemes. Flowers papilionaceous, elongated for bird or bat pollination. Bracts small, bracteoles orbicular or ovate, small, caducous. Calyx 5-lobed, subtruncate or with broad obtuse lobes, upper 2 lobers slightly or completely connate. Corolla orangish red (bird–pollinated) or bluish green (bat–pollinated), standard ovate–oblong with 2 appendages above the claw, becoming reflexed, wings much shorter than standard and adhering to keel. Stamens 10; upper stamen distinct, the other 9 connate into a tube. Ovary superior, stipitate; ovules 1 to several; style filiform, glabrous apically; stigma small, terminal.

Fruit: Pods stipitate; subglobose; ovoid; or ovoid–oblong; dehiscent or rarely indehiscent; with strongly veined valves. Seeds 1–12; subglobose; with a linear hilum extending to ½ the circumference of the seed or more.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: