Flora of North America species comparison

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

erect, not viny, 0.2-0.3(-0.5) m, glabrous or slightly pubescent, arising from horizontal, branching rhizomes and forming patches.

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.

proximal simple, blades unlobed or 2-3-lobed, distal blades 1-pinnate;

leaflets and unlobed blades linear-elliptic to narrowly lanceolate or oblanceolate, (3-)4-12(-15) × (0.3-)0.5-1(-1.5) cm, thin, not prominently reticulate;

surfaces abaxially nearly glabrous to sparsely villous on veins, not glaucous.

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

terminal, flowers solitary;

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.

narrowly urn-shaped;

sepals uniformly violet-blue, oblong-lanceolate, 2-2.5(-3) cm, margins narrowly expanded distally to about 1 mm wide, thin, crispate, proximally tomentose, tips spreading to recurved, acute to acuminate, abaxially sparsely puberulent.

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

beak 2-6 cm.

bodies appressed-puberulent;

beak 1.5-2.5 cm, appressed-puberulent.