Slender vine, climbing by hooked petioles; stems puberulent, weak, drying sulcate, the nodes somewhat enlarged. Leaves opposite, trifoliolate, the leaflets 3-4 cm long, ovate, apically acuminate, basally narrowed, irregularly serrate, the venation pinnate with 4-8 lateral veins on each side of the midvein, glabrate; petiolules short or wanting; petiole slender, weak, to 8 mm long, the basal 5-8 mm on some leaves becoming lignified, curved and hooklike, the distal portion deciduous. Inflorescence of solitary or paired heads distributed along the stem; peduncles slender, weak, sulcate, to 7 cm long, subtended by 1-2 entire bracts, sometimes with a bracteole along the length. Heads radiate; involucral bracts in 2 dissimilar series, the outermost ca. 5, linear, porrect, 8-14 mm long, herbaceous, thick, the midvein prominent, the inner series membranous, ca. 7 mm long and 3 mm wide, drying striate, the margins lighter in color; paleas resembling the inner involucral bracts but narrower; ray florets ca. 5, the corolla yellow, orange, red, or pink, 7-20 mm long, apically denticulate, the numerous longitudinal veins conspicuous, the ovary dorsiventrally flattened, rectangular, apically indented between the 2 hornlike lobes, pappus of a minute retrorsely barbed awn on each lobe, or wanting; disc florets numerous, the corolla tubular, slightly curved, ca. 8 mm long, long-exserted from the palea, glabrous outside, the lobes 1 mm long, glabrous, the anthers dark, 2 mm long, basally obtuse or auriculate, the apical appendages short, emarginate, the filaments glabrous, the style branches united, long-exserted, the surface granular, the ovary sterile. Achene (after Sherff ) blackish, 7-11 mm long, ca. 4 mm wide, apically 2-dentate, slightly winged, papillose in rows, strigose.
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