Parsonsia R.Br.

Climbing shrubs; bark variable. Branches with or without lenticels; branchlets glabrous, puberulent or tomentose. Leaves opposite or in whorls of 3 or more, equal in size at a node, entire; colleters in the axils and frequently in a ring around the stem. Inflorescence axillary or terminal, corymbose, pedunculate and several times branched or with flowers clustered at inflorescence ends, few-to many-flowered; bracts small, linear or ovate; flowers 5-merous. Sepals connate at the very base, erect or reflexed, ovate to linear, with colleters inside. Corolla actinomorphic; lobes dextrorse, often so very slightly overlapping as to appear valvate; tube cylindrical or somewhat inflated; lobes reflexed, spreading or erect; outside and inside pubescent or glabrous. Stamens exserted, inserted anywhere on the corolla tube from the base to near the throat, adnate to the style head; filaments straight, bent or strongly twisted, most often pubescent; anthers usually narrowly triangular, sometimes oblong, fertile in the upper half only, the lower half sterile, laterally with lignified guide rails and sagittate appendages at the base. Disk of 5 lobes, sometimes fused into an annular ring, often with complex development of teeth at the apex. Gynoecium of 2 connate carpels, often 4-toothed at apex, glabrous. Style narrow; style head ovoid. Ovules many. Fruit of 1 follicle clearly composed of 2 locules; linear to fusiform. Seeds roughly triangular in cross section, long and narrow, bearing a coma at the end towards the apex of the fruit.

Usually occurs in rainforests and vine thickets, with a few extending to semi-arid inland areas.