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Scrambling or climbing shrub with fairly stout, rather curved spines; shoots and spines with curly hairs. Lvs with densely hairy petioles, brownish when young. Lamina 4-11 × 1.75-8 cm, lanceolate-ovate to broad-ovate, puberulent when young, becoming glabrate above except on veins; base cuneate; apex cuspidate or short-acuminate. Fls on long branches, leafy at the base, in clusters of (1)-3. Bracts 3.5-5.5 × 3-4 cm, broadly oblong-ovate, magenta, papery, ± bullate; apex acute or mucronate. Perianth 2-2.5 cm long, densely hairy and dark purple outside, cream inside; limb 7-10 mm diam., shrinking when dried, undulate, cream above. Stamens unequal; anthers suborbicular. Fr. not seen.
Shrubs vinelike. Stems thick, branches pendent, glabrous or sparsely pubescent; spines axillary, 5-15 mm. Petiole 1 cm; leaf blade ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 5-13 × 3-6 cm, chartaceous, abaxially sparsely pubescent, adaxially glabrous. Foliaceous bracts purple or magenta, oblong or elliptic, 2.5-3.5 × 2 cm, chartaceous. Perianth tube greenish, distinctly angled, ca. 2 cm, sparsely pubescent, ribbed, apex 5-lobed, hairs short, curved away from pedicel. Stamens 6-8. Fl. winter-spring (in south), Mar-Jul. (in north or greenhouse).
Leaves almost evenly elliptic, sparsely puberulous on both sides, somewhat denser on the nerves underneath; nerves above paler and slightly depressed. Bracts 3-4.25 by 1.75-3 cm, minutely hairy, persistently purple, with green nerves. Perianth 1.5-2.5 cm long, distinctly swollen and 5-angular below the constriction, with very short, to 0.2 mm, white hairs with curved top. Anthocarp 7-13 mm long, glabrous.
Pending. See Jones & Gray (1988: 35), Spencer (1997: 182).
