Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Large, woody lianas.

Stems: Stems high–climbing or sprawling, 8–15(–80) m long.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound. Alternate. Leaflets broadly elliptic or ovate, leaflets 4–13 cm long, 2.5–7.5 cm wide, lateral ones asymmetrical. Surfaces glabrous or glabrate. Leaflet margins entire. Petiolate. Stipules caducous. Leaflets stipellate.

Flowers: Flowers pseudoracemes short, corymbose, pendulous on a long peduncle, bracts and bracteoles fugacious, bracts up to 7 mm long, bracteoles up to 14 mm long. Flowers papilionaceous. Calyx lobes deltate, 2–4 mm long, Calyx campanulate, bilabiate. Corolla yellowish green (outside Hawai‘i also white or pale lilac), 3–4.5 cm long, showy, variously colored, standard shorter than other petals, wings incurved, stiffened at apex, keel angularly 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; ovules few; style 1, apical, filiform, glabrous apically; stigma small, terminal.

Fruit: Pods compressed; (7–)10–15 cm long; 3–5(–6) cm wide; covered with stiff; very irritating; orangish brown hairs; quickly glabrate; faces pitted; reticulate; without transverse lamellae. Seeds 2–3(4); brown; brown mottled with black; or rarely entirely black; discoid; 2–3 cm long; 1.8–2.5 cm wide; hilum extending ¾–5/6 of the circumference.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Sprawling over rocks; shrubs; and trees usually near the ocean or streams.

Elevation Range: 0–310 m.