Woody vine 5-15 m long, usually many-branched from base. Stems trigonous, 3-costate, glabrous or puberulent, to 1.5 cm in diam., producing milky latex; cross section with a central, large, trigonous vascular cylinder and 3 peripheral, smaller vascular cylinders forming ribs at stem’s corners. Stipules subulate, ca. 1.2 cm long, early deciduous, leaving a scar ca. 2 mm wide. Leaves pinnately 5-foliolate; petiole and rachis unwinged, rachis sometimes margined; leaflets coriaceous, glabrous, dull, oblong, ovate or oblanceolate, 5-14 × 3-6 cm, the apex acute or acuminate, the base obtuse or rounded, or subattenuate, sometimes asymmetrical on lateral ones, the margins repando serrate-dentate; abaxial surface with prominent venation, and sometimes with minute tufts of hair in the axils of the secondary veins; petiolules 5-7 (-20) mm long. Thyrses axillary racemiform, solitary, densely flowered, sessile or less often on an elongated axis; rachis pubescent or glabrous; bracts subulate, pubescent, 5-10 mm long (longer than the cincinni), early deciduous; bracteoles triangular, ca. 2 mm long; cincinni sessile, 3-4-flowered, with persistent articulate bases of pedicels. Calyx appressed-pubescent or puberulent, of 5 concave, sepals, the outer sepals ca. 1.5 mm long, rounded, the inner ones ca. 2.5 mm long, widely oblong; petals white, narrowly oblong or narrowly oblanceolate, acute at apex, ca. 4 mm long, glabrous; appendages half as long as the petals, with a fleshy, elongated, yellow, bilobed crest and wooly margins; disc of 2 rounded lobes, glabrous; torus pilose; filaments pilose. Capsule pyriform, club-shaped, or less often obovoid, long-stipitate (up to 1 cm long), unwinged, red, coriaceous, glabrous, 2-4 cm long, 1-or 2-seeded; mesocarp ca. 1 mm thick; endocarp papery, glabrous. Seed asymmetrically ellipsoid, 1-1.5 cm long, dark brown or black, shiny, with a bilobed, white, sarcotesta for ½ of its length.
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