Flora of North America species comparison

aerial, often descending to ground level and forming pillar-roots Bark of trunks and older branches brown, smooth.

adventitious, nodal.

appressed-pubescent when young, glabrous in age.

puberulent, glabrescent in age.

blade ovate, 10-30 × 7-20 cm, leathery, base cordate, margins entire, apex obtuse;

surfaces abaxially puberulent, adaxially glabrous;

basal veins (2-)3-4 pairs, 1/3-1/2 length of blade, reticulations regular;

lateral veins 5-6(-7) pairs.

blade oblong to ovate-elliptic or obovate, 4-10 × 2.5-4.5 cm, those of appressed climbing stems distichous, appressed, smaller (than those of loose, extended, flowering stems), spreading, leathery, base obtuse to rounded, margins recurved, apex obtuse to nearly acute;

surfaces abaxially glabrous or puberulent on veins, adaxially glabrous, prominently reticulate;

basal pair of veins 1;

lateral pairs of veins 3-6, straight;

secondary veins prominent.

paired, sessile, orange or red, depressed-globose, 1.5-2 × 2-2.5 mm, pubescent; subtending bracts ovate, 3-7 mm, puberulous;

ostiole closed by 3 flat or nearly umbonate apical bracts 3-4 mm wide.

solitary, pedunculate, green, oblong, obovoid, pyriform, or nearly globose, 3-4 × 3-4 cm, slightly pubescent but becoming glabrescent in age;

peduncle thick, 8-15 mm; subtending bracts ovate, 5-7 mm;

ostiole closed by 3 bracts, umbonate.

vines or sprawling shrubs, vines closely appressed to substrate, shrubs loosely ascending, evergreen.