Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Vines.

Stems: Stems often swollen at the nodes, terete (cylindrical), 4–angled or –ridged, 6–12 dm long (in cultivation eventually to 15 dm or more long), sprawling when young to reclining when longer, at least sparingly branched, internodes deep purple or purplish green, glabrous throughout, except bracts, sepals, and sometimes the pedicel.

Roots: Fibrous root system.

Leaves: Leaves simple. Opposite. Blades narrowly ovate or lanceolate to elliptic–lanceolate, 6.5–11.5 cm long, 2–2.8 cm wide. Apex acute to acuminate. Base leaf bases often connate around the stem. Surfaces weakly glossy, green or yellowish green, sometimes purple–tinged, especially on lower surface; blades weakly coriaceous and rubbery, chartaceous when dry, with only the midvein evident. Margins entire, slightly thickened becoming revolute toward the base. Midvein ± slightly excentric, usually reddish purple. Petioles 0.8–0.9 cm long, purple, weakly ± grooved. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescence terminal, with 40–60 flowers, 20–35 cm long and nearly as wide, diffuse, laterally–directed or pendent, the tertiary and higher level internodes or pedicels weakly spreading; bracts subulate, the lowermost of central axis narrowly elliptic, falcate, green and purple–tinged or purple, the lowermost ones 2–17 mm long, those of branches and flowers 1.5–4.5 mm long, purple, the adaxial surface puberulent; pedicels 13–15 mm long at anthesis, weakly flattened, very weakly angled just below the flower and often with a few hairs. Flowers bisexual (perfect), usually pendent. Sepals 2.2–3 mm long, elongating to 4 mm long in fruit, ovate, green, sometimes purple–tinged toward apex or irregularly purple throughout, opaque, strongly reflexed and convex in the proximal ¼, producing a conspicuous transverse bulge, the distal part broadly navicular, oriented at 5° to 30° angle to the pedicel, abaxial side sparsely puberulent toward the base, the adaxial side puberulent, primarily near the midrib, margins conspicuously scarious, ciliate, apex attenuate, inconspicuously slightly twisted. Corolla (petals) absent. Stamens 10; filaments dimorphic, the antisepalous whorl 6.2–6.3 mm long, the alternate whorl 5 mm long; anthers 0.75–0.8 mm long, subequal, pale yellow. Ovary superior, 1-celled; ovule placentation free-central; styles 3, white.

Fruit: Capsules 2.5–2.7 mm long; ovoid. Seeds ca. 1.2 mm long; orbicular–reniform; compressed; the surface rugose; perisperm starchy; hard or rarely soft; true endosperm absent.

Ploidy:

Habitat: From mesic shrubland.

Elevation Range: 410–570 m.