Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Lianas, growing closely appressed to supporting structures, climbing by means of recurved tendrils representing modified leaflets.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves compound. Opposite. Blades composed of 2 leaflets and a terminal, 3–parted, claw-like tendril. Petiolate. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in contracted, few–flowered to several–flowered, axillary cymes or panicles, sometimes solitary. Flowers bisexual (perfect), usually large and showy. Calyx membranous, often irregularly lobed or split and spathe-like, campanulate. Corolla zygomorphic, sometimes strongly so, often bilabiate, rarely nearly actinomorphic, 5-lobed; yellow, tubular–campanulate, glabrous externally. Stamens 4; in pairs, with an additional staminode, occasionally only 2 Stamens fertile with 3 staminodes, rarely 5 fertile stamens; filaments attached to corolla tube, alternate with the lobes; anthers usually dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits. Ovary superior, 2-carpellate, with as many cells, sometimes 1-celled or 4-celled, placentation axile or in 1-celled ovary with 2 or 4 intruded parietal placentas, 4-angled; ovules in 2–4 series per cell, anatropous or hemitropous, often erect; style 1; stigma 2-lobed.

Fruit: Fruit a narrow; linear; compressed capsules; the valves parallel to the septum; smooth externally. Seeds flat with 2 wings; these not sharply demarcated from the seed body; endosperm absent; rarely present and oily.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: