Scandent shrub. Young branchlets cinereous, glabrescent. Leaves opposite, petioled, oblong-ellptic, acuminate at the apex, rounded at the base, minutely punctulate above, densely lepidote below but individual scales not conspicuous, 7-15 by 4-10 cm, sericeous when young, eventually glabrescent except for domatia. Spikes axillary, 6-8 cm long, occasionally branched. Flowers 5-merous, red, sessile. Lower receptacle (ovary) densely sericeous, 3-4 mm long; upper receptacle elongate-infundibuliform, appressed-pubescent, 8-9 mm long with 5 broadly deltoid calyx-lobes which are no more than blunt teeth at the apex of the tube. Petals 5, obovate-ellptic to oblong-lanceolate, 2½ by 1½ mm, pubescent outside, glabrous inside. Stamens 10; filaments dark red, exserted for 13-14 mm beyond the mouth of the tube, 5 attached at the margin of the disk and 5, alternating with the former, attached 3 mm from the base of the upper receptacle; anthers red, oblong, 1.2 by 0.8 mm. Disk cupular, c. 1 mm deep, barbate on the margin. Style 23 mm long, exserted for 14 mm beyond the mouth of the tube. Fruit broadly elliptic to suborbicular in outline, up to 2½ by 2 cm with 5 thin, flexible wings up to 8 mm broad.
Little known. Fide White (l.c.) 'this rambling scandent shrub is very common about Port Moresby and with its bri½ ant red flowers is quite a conspicuous feature in the vegetation'. The elongation of the upper receptacle makes it only suitable for pollination by fairly long-tongued insects; the fruits are of the broadly winged wind-distributed type.
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