Fleshy ± succulent trailer; older stems with tough greyish purple almost shiny epidermis, longitudinally wrinkled due to drying, appearing ± glabrous but with scattered straggling hairs; young stems ± densely pubescent but not glandular, tendrils present.. Leaves 3–4-foliolate; leaflets elliptic, 2–8 cm. long, 1–5.5 cm. wide, acute or subacute at the apex, ± rounded to broadly cuneate at the base, shallowly crenate and with minute teeth at end of nerves, surface densely covered with rhaphides and scattered hairs on main nerves and midrib, otherwise glabrous; petiole 2–3 cm. long, densely pubescent with curled hairs; petiolules 0.3–1.5 cm., similarly pubescent; stipules ovate, 9 mm. long, 5 mm. wide.. Cymes extensive, 6.5 cm. wide in flower, extending up to 15 cm. wide in fruit; peduncle 4.5 cm. long and with ± similar epidermis to stems; one shoot with suppressed leaves appears to have an involucre of 3 stipules in the centre of a ± 7 cm. long stalk; axes pubescent but not glandular; pedicels 5 mm. long, lengthening to 1 cm. long in fruit, widened slightly at apex, mostly pubescent but without gland-tipped hairs; bracts conspicuous, elliptic, 3–7 mm. long, 1.5–3 mm. wide, ciliate.. Buds oblong, 2 mm. long, constricted at middle, with few hairs at tip.. Calyx 1.8 mm. wide.. Fruit 1–1.5 cm. long, very angular when dry due to seed-wings, glabrous but with surface rhaphides.. Seeds oblong, 1 cm. long, 5.5 mm. wide; ventral ridge thin and wing-like with 2 basally directed lateral wings extending ± parallel for 6 mm. one on either side of the ventral from near the point where the latter divides into the lateral dorsal ridges; mid-dorsal ridge very obscure, ± a series of tubercles lying in the broad curve between the lateral dorsal wing-like ridges; basal projection strongly 3-winged by the main ridges; surface covered with dense aggregate of minute whitish bodies (see note).. Fig.l2/D–F, p.49.
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