Flora of North America species comparison

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

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

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 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.

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

terminal, flowers solitary.

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.

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.

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

beak 2-6 cm.

bodies densely long-pubescent;

beak 4-9 cm, plumose.