Lianas; stems terete, densely yellowish-hispid when young, glabrate in age, purplish and weakly viscidulous; wood simple. Leaves usually biternate, with one or both of the ternate lower pairs sometimes simple, the leaf then pinnately 5-foliolate (or rarely 3-foliolate), 12-30 cm long, sparsely hispid throughout on both surfaces; petiole 1.5-6 cm long, without wings; rachis conspicuously winged, the wing 5-9 mm wide; leaflets oblong-elliptic to narrowly ovate or oblanceolate, acuminate or less commonly acute at the apex, attenuate to acute at the base, 3.5-18 cm long, 1.5-7 cm wide, coarsely crenate-serrate above the middle; stipules lanceolate-linear, ca. 1 mm wide at the base, sparsely hispid, 8-12 mm long. In-florescences densely clustered in inconspicuous, few-flowered fascicles on leafless stems; pedicels inconspicuously pubescent. Flowers sessile or nearly so, white; sepals glabrous, the outer to 1.8 mm long, the inner ca. 3.2 mm long; petals nar-rowly oblong-obovate, to 3.5 mm long, little more than 1 mm wide, glabrous except for the sparsely long-ciliate margins, glandular within, the anterior scales nearly as long as petals, elliptic, glabrous except for the long-ciliate margin; crest deeply bifid, orange, the deflexed appendage glabrous except for the sparsely long-ciliate margin, orange, shorter than the crest, the lateral scales with the crest simple; disc glands nearly oblong, glabrous; stame-s with the filaments sparsely long-pubescent; bisexual flowers with the stamens to 2 mm long, the pistil to 2.5 mm long, the ovary ovoid, 3-sided, sparsely hispid on the angles, the style as long as the ovary, 3-branched in the upper half. Fruits almost rounded, red, prominently 3-winged, emarginate, truncate to rounded at the base, 1.5-2.2 cm long, 1.8-2.5 cm wide, 3-locular, glabrous outside with prominently raised nerves, yellowish wooly-tomentose inside, the wing 3-7 mm wide; seeds 1 or 2, globose, black, shiny, conspicuously grayish-velutinous, ca. 7 mm diam.
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