Flora of North America species comparison

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

scrambling to climbing with tendril-like petioles and leaf-rachises, 4-5 m or more.

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 odd-pinnate, usually 5-foliolate;

leaflets deltate to ovate, strongly 3-parted to 3-cleft, proximal leaflets sometimes 3-cleft, 1.5-5.5 × 0.5-4.5 cm, membranous to leathery;

segments ovate, deltate, or linear, margins dentate;

surfaces pilose, abaxially more densely so.

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

usually axillary, 3-12-flowered simple cymes or compound with central axis or flowers solitary or paired.

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, (1.1-)1.5-7 cm;

sepals wide-spreading, not recurved, white to cream, oblong or elliptic to obovate or oblanceolate, (7-)9-13(-15) mm, abaxially and adaxially pubescent;

stamens 40-90;

filments glabrous;

staminodes 17-35 when present;

pistils 35-90.

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

beak 2-6 cm.

elliptic to ovate, 3-5 × l.5-2.5 mm, rimmed, short-silky;

beak 4-9 cm.