Climbers, perennial, herbaceous, from a stout simple or branched carrotlike rootstock. Stems (1-)2-5 m, thin, sulcate, branched and leafy throughout. Leaves ± reflexed on a zigzag stem; petiole 0.5-3 cm; leaf blade glaucous abaxially, dark green adaxially, with 1 pair of primary pinnae usually displaced (alternate); rachis ending in a thin branched cirrose tendril; primary leaflets twice to 3 × ternately compound; ultimate leaflets ovate, 5-30 × 4-18 mm, margin entire, apex obtuse, with small hooked mucro. Raceme 1-5 cm, 6-14-flowered, nutant; peduncle 2-8 cm; bracts narrowly oblanceolate, 3-6 × ca. 1 mm, margin entire or slightly dentate, apex acute. Pedicel thin, 10-20 mm, elongating in fruit to 30 mm. Sepals ovate-lanceolate, 3-4 × ca. 2 mm, entire. Corolla yellow, often pinkish toward apex, oblong-cordate to obtusely triangular in profile, 18-21 × 8-10 mm; outer petals saccate, ± sharply keeled or narrowly winged at base; sinus at petiole insertion narrow, 3-4 mm deep; dorsal crest of inner petals overtopping petal apex 1-2 mm; nectary sigmoidally curved, 3-4 mm, apex acute. Stigma almost square, slightly notched at apex, with small papillae in forward corners and more prominent rounded papillae in basal corners. Capsule purple, red, whitish, or pale yellow when mature, ovoid to lanceolate, 15-20(-25) × (5-)6-8 mm, very fleshy and without sclerified veins, not dehiscent by valves, but dispersed entire (presumably by birds) or when dry irregularly disintegrating, 25-50(-100)-seeded, tipped by stiff style 5-7 mm. Seeds black, colliculate (less prominently so toward hilum), 1.7-2 mm, ovoid, with small or rudimentary elaiosome. Fl. Jul-Nov, fr. Aug-Dec.
Home