Flora of North America species comparison

climbing with tendril-like petioles and leaf rachises, 3-6 m.

climbing, 3-6 m.

blade pinnately 3- or 5-foliolate;

leaflets ovate or broadly lanceolate to narrowly deltate, to 6.5 × 3.5 cm, margins entire;

surfaces abaxially glabrous or very sparingly appressed-strigose on major veins.

blade pinnate or 2-ternate, 5-9-foliolate, membranous;

leaflets ovate to lanceolate, largest 4-9 × 2.5-9 cm, surfaces abaxially sparsely to densely pilose, adaxially glabrate;

proximal and lateral leaflets typically 3-cleft, unlobed or few-lobed, margins coarsely toothed or entire, surfaces sparsely pubescent or nearly glabrous; ultimate venation conspicuous.

axillary, 3-12-flowered cymes or compound cymes or paniculate with cymose subunits.

axillary, 3-many-flowered simple to compound panicles with central axis.

bisexual, often some unisexual (staminate) in same inflorescence;

pedicel 1-3.5 cm, slender;

sepals wide-spreading, not recurved, white, linear or elliptic to lanceolate or narrowly obovate, 0.9-2.2 cm, length ca. 2-3 times width, abaxially tomentose along margins, adaxially glabrous;

stamens ca. 50;

filaments glabrous;

staminodes absent;

pistils 5-10.

unisexual;

pedicel slender, 11-13 mm, to 2 cm in fruit;

sepals wide-spreading, not recurved, white to cream, oblong or obovate to oblanceolate, 6-14 × 2-5 mm, abaxially densely white-hairy, adaxially sparsely white-hairy;

stamens ca. 30-50;

staminodes absent or fewer than stamens;

pistils 18-35.

broad, flat, conspicuously rimmed, minutely appressed-silky, sometimes sparsely so;

beak 2-6 cm.

ovate, ca. 3.5 × 1.5 mm, conspicuously rimmed, sparsely short hairy;

beak 2.5-3.5 cm.