Tendrilled lianas; stems terete, glabrate with conspicuous brown lenticels; wood simple; sap at periphery milky, not copious. Leaves 3-foliolate; petioles to 14 cm long, with marginal ribs above, glabrate; leaflets broadly elliptic to ovate, acuminate or acute at the apex, attenuate to rounded at the base, 5-15 cm long, 3-12 cm wide, to 23 cm long and 11 cm wide as juveniles, glabrate except for the axillary tufts beneath, subentire to remotely crenate-dentate. Inflorescences to 7 cm long, solitary or clustered at the nodes, often on leafless stems near the ground but also occurring to 5 m high. Flowers white, ca. 5 mm long, in small helicoid thyrses; sepals appressed-pubescent; petals oblong, to 4.5 mm long, the scales ca. 2/3 as long as petals, yellow-crested, those of the anterior petals bilobed, their deflexed appendages pubescent, the disc glands white, acute, densely pubes-cent; staminal cluster equalling the petals, the filaments densely pubescent throughout; nectar abundant, stored in the vicinity of the anterior disc glands; ovary glabrous, the styles pubescent. Capsules elliptic to obovate, 2 cm long, red, 3-locular, short-pubescent, the 3 boat-shaped valves broadly spreading to expose seeds; seeds 1-3, black, shiny, less than 1 cm long, covered on the lower half by a fleshy white aril, dangling on a thin funiculus when fully displayed. The species is confused with no other species in Panama. It is distinguished by its 3-foliolate leaves, conspicuously lenticellate stems, and pubescent, dis-tally winged capsules.
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