Twining liana; stems to 5 cm diam; vegetative branchlets strigillose. Leaves trifoliolate; stipules subulate, to 2 cm long, with a produced basal lobe; petioles 4-7 cm long; leaflets elliptic-obovate, briefly acuminate, rounded-truncate at base, 6-14 cm long, 4-9 cm wide, glabrous above, sparsely strigillose below, thinly coriaceous, shiny. Racemes to 30 cm long, rufous-tomentose; pedicels at anthesis 5-7 mm long, enlarging in fruit; calyx densely pubescent, the trichomes appressed, brown, the subtending bracts linear to narrowly lanceolate, usually reflexed, the carinal tooth curved inward; standard violet to purple, to 1.5 cm long, recurved, rounded and emarginate, broader than long, the upper margin violet to orchid, lobed and clawed at base; stamens diadelphous, weakly connate to form a tube, the tube curved forward, the free stamen and 4 additional alternate stamens of the tube sterile, the 5 fertile stamens longer; style recurved near apex in bud, then straightening; stigma round, at height of sterile anthers, later at height of fertile anthers as the style lengthens. Legumes oblong, somewhat turgid, 12-18 cm long, 5-6 cm wide, at most only slightly concave along the upper margin, constricted somewhat in thickness between the seeds, sulcate along the lower margin, rufous-tomentose when young, the upper suture with a broad costa on either side; seeds 2 or 3, orbicular, ca 3 cm diam, dark brown. Croat 5017, 8390. Occasional, along the shore and in the canopy of the forest. Flowers from September to April, mostly from December to March. The fruits are full size from January to May, but their time of maturity is not known, possibly in the rainy season. The stigma is at first recurved near the apex in bud, at which time the five fertile anthers are undehisced. Before the petals open, the stigma straightens and is disposed among the sterile anthers below the fertile anthers, which then shed their pollen. Pantropical. In Panama, known from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone, Bocas del Toro, San Blas, Coclé, Panama, and Darien.