Liana to 6 cm in diameter, the bark dark, fibrous, irregularly striate; attached to supporting tree by adventitious rootlets; phloem of stem irregularly many-armed in cross section; dimorphic, the juvenile plant with small leaflets, 1-2 cm long and 4-8 mm wide, climbing straight up tree trunks, often rooting at nodes; branchlets terete, puberulous to glabrous, the nodes usually without interpetiolar glandular fields; pseudostipules ovate, longitudinally striate. Leaves 2-foliolate, often with a trifid uncate tendril especially when young; leaflets when young narrowly ovate to lanceolate, mucronate at tip, basally rounded, when mature narrowly ovate to ovate, acute to acuminate, cuneate to truncate, 5.0-16 cm long and 1.2-6.9 cm wide, membranaceous, scattered lepidote above and beneath, otherwise glabrous above and beneath, or sparsely puberulous especially along main veins or rarely densely puberulous over whole under surface, a few plate-shaped glands near midvein beneath, drying dark green or dark olive to almost black, the main veins drying reddish below; mature petiolules 0.8-3.5 cm long, petiole 1.1-6 cm long, glabrous or subpuberulous. Inflorescence an axillary panicle usually reduced to 1 or 3 flowers, rarely to 15 flowers, the branches more or less glabrous. Flowers with the calyx membranaceous, cupular with a sinuous margin, subtruncate, glabrous to slightly lepidote, often with scattered glands, 5-18 mm long and 8-18 mm wide; corolla yellow with ca 9 orange lines in the throat, tubular-campanulate, 4.5-10 cm long and 1.2-2.4 cm wide at mouth of tube, the tube 3.3-6.9 cm long, the lobes 1.2-3.1 cm long, glabrous outside, glabrous or slightly simple puberulous along throat ridges inside, pubescent with simple jointed trichomes at the level of stamen insertion; stamens didynamous, the anther thecae divaricate, 3 mm long, the filaments 1.2-2.4 cm long, the staminode 0.5-1.5 cm long, occasionally developed into fifth stamen, insertion 4-8 mm above base of corolla tube; pistil 2.8-3.8 cm long, the ovary linear, 6-7 mm long and 1.2 mm wide, minutely lepidote to subpuberulous, the ovules 4-seriate but appearing 2-seriate in most cross sections; disc annular, 1-1.5 mm long and 3-4 mm wide. Capsule elongate-linear, tapering at the ends, flattened, 26-95 cm long and 1.0-1.9 cm wide, the surface inconspicuously lepidote, drying blackish with small whitish lenticels, midrib not raised; seeds 1.0-1.8 cm long and 4.2-5.8 cm wide, the wings membranaceous, blunt-ended, mostly brown, the extreme tips irregularly hyaline, not sharply demarcated from seed body.
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Vigorous woody climber, climbing by tripartite, hooked (uncinate) tendrils (resembling claws) and adventitious roots and tubers, glabrous. Leaves opposite, 3-foliate with the terminal leaflet modified into a 3-clawed tendril, each claw c. 10–15 mm long (tendrils absent from some leaves); leaflets usually 2 (rarely 1 or 5 in juveniles), with lamina ovate to oblong-elliptic, 2–7 cm long, 10–30 (–35) mm wide, glabrous, apex ± acuminate, margin entire to obscurely toothed; petiole 10–20 cm long; petiolules (1.5–) 5–15 mm long. Panicles axillary, sometimes reduced to 1 or 3 flowers. Flowers: calyx c. 10–15 (–20) mm long; corolla yellow often with darker or orangey lines in tube, 4–8 (–9) cm long, lobes to c. 2 cm long, ± white-ciliate margin. Stamens dimorphic, 2 long and 2 short and 1 staminode. Capsule linear, 15–47 cm long, 8–13 (–20) mm wide, leathery, ± smooth; seeds numerous, 20–40 × 9–12 mm (including wing), appearing 2-winged as membranous, ± hyaline wing wider at 2 ends.
A creeper. It has root tubers 3-4 cm across. The leaves have 2-3 leaflets.
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