Giant suffrutescent herbs; stems as much as 8 m. tall and 2-3 cm. in diameter at the base, trailing or clambering over neighboring plants, inconspicuously pilosu-lose to glabrate, armed with yellow thorns which are paired and particularly prominent at the nodes; leaves alternate, petiolate, palmately compound, the petioles 2-8 cm. long, armed with stout yellow thorns, the leaflets 3-5, ovate-elliptic, acute, cuneate, 2.5-8.0 cm. long, 1-3 cm. broad, essentially glabrous, but the midrib beneath frequently armed with thorns similar to those of the petiole; inflorescence a dense, terminal, many-flowered raceme 5-15 cm. long, the peduncle minutely pilosulose and frequently armed with small thorns, greatly accrescent in fruit, the bracts minute and setose, or suppressed, the pedicels about 1 cm. long; sepals 4, ovate-lanceolate, narrowly acuminate, about 3-4 mm. long, papillate; petals broadly elliptic, 6-8 mm. long, greenish, unguiculate, the narrow claw about 1/3 as long as the blade; stamens 6, the filaments about 5 mm. long, inserted near the base of the androgynophore, the anthers about 3 mm. long; disc conspicuous, glandular, concentric, about 1.5 mm. in diameter; ovary about 1.5 mm. long, glabrous, the stigma sessile, the gynophore about 1 mm. long, very greatly accres-cent in fruit; silique linear-fusiform, 8-20 cm. long, about 1.5 mm. thick, irreg-ularly moniliform, glabrous, seeds roughly subquadroid, about 1 mm. square, brownish-granulose, the fruiting gynophores 25-30 cm. long, pendulous.
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