Flora of North America species comparison

erect, not viny, 1.5-6.5 dm, hirsute (sometimes sparsely so in var. hirsutissima) or densely short, soft-pubescent to nearly glabrous.

herbaceous, ascending to erect, not climbing, 0.6-1.5 m. Leaf blade pinnately 5-9-foliolate;

leaflets lanceolate to ovate, 3-9 × 0.8-4 cm, margins entire;

surfaces glabrous.

blade 2-3-pinnate;

leaflets often deeply 2-several-lobed, if lobed than lateral lobes usually small and distinctly narrower than central portion, leaflets or lobes linear to lanceolate, 1-6 × 0.05-1.5 cm, thin, not prominently reticulate;

surfaces sparsely to densely silky-hirsute, not glaucous.

terminal, flowers solitary.

axillary and terminal, many-flowered cymes and panicles.

broadly cylindric to urn-shaped;

sepals very dark violet-blue or rarely pink or white, oblong-lanceolate, 2.5-4.5 cm, margins narrowly expanded distally, 0.5-2 mm wide, thin, distally ± crisped, tomentose, tips obtuse to acute, slightly spreading, abaxially usually densely hirsute, occasionally moderately so.

bisexual;

pedicel 8-20 mm, slender;

sepals wide-spreading, not recurved, white, oblanceolate to oblong, 8-20 mm, length ca. 4 times width, margins tomentose, otherwise glabrous;

stamens 20-50;

filaments glabrous;

staminodes absent;

pistils 8-25.

bodies densely long-pubescent;

beak 4-9 cm, plumose.

broad, flat, conspicuously rimmed, glabrous;

beak 1.2-2 cm.