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Polygamous lianas, usually with axillary tendrils; stems terete or prominently sulcate. Leaves stipulate, ternate (Panama) or rarely biternate; leaflets entire to coarsely dentate, sometimes pellucid-punctate, pinnately veined. Inflorescences of axillary thyrses, usually associated with tendrils. Flowers weakly zygomorphic, small, white; sepals 5, the outer 2 smaller, cup shaped; petals 4, all bearing scales within from the base, these with a broad crest at the apex and a deflexed ap-pendage on the inner side below the crest, the anterior scales better developed than the lateral ones; disc unilateral with 2 or 4 glands; stamens 8, eccentric; ovary sessile, eccentric, 3-celled, the style short, 3-fid; ovules solitary. Fruits 3-carpellate; carpels samaroid, seed-bearing in the middle, indehiscent, mem-branous, broadly winged, separating at maturity from the axis; seeds subglobose, arillate at the base, the testa crustaceous.
