Flora of North America species comparison

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

viny, to 3 m, glabrous or sparsely to moderately pilose-pubescent, denser at nodes.

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 1-2-pinnate or rarely a few simple or 3-foliolate;

leaflets 4-10 plus additional ± tendril-like terminal leaflet, usually lanceolate to ovate, occasionally linear, unlobed or proximally 3-5-lobed, (1.5-)3-10 × (0.1-)0.4-4(-5) cm, thin, not conspicuously reticulate;

surfaces glabrous, not glaucous.

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

terminal, 1-flowered;

bracts absent.

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.

bell-shaped;

sepals distally strongly spreading to recurved, violet-blue, lanceolate, 2.5-5 cm, margins proximally thick and tomentose, distally broadly expanded, 2-6 mm wide, thin, crispate, less conspicuously tomentose than proximal portion, or glabrate, tips acuminate, abaxially glabrous.

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

beak 2-6 cm.

bodies appressed-puberulent;

beak 2-3.5 cm, appressed-puberulent.

= 16.