Liana; young stems 5-sulcate, the older stems winged, the wings 3, broad, corky; sap milky; stems, petioles, and rachises bearing sparse long pubescence. Leaves pinnate; stipules paired, lanceolate, 2-4 cm long, to 1.5 cm broad, minutely pubescent, often persistent, ciliate; petioles, rachises, and blades ciliate; petioles to 22 cm long, winged; rachis winged; leaflets 5, +/- elliptic, acuminate, acute at base, 8-30 cm long, 4-12 cm wide, glabrous above but with pubescent midrib and principal veins, glabrate to hispidulous all over below, crenate above the middle. Thyrses dense, arranged +/- densely on strong, slender, densely rufous, bracteate, axillary inflorescences; flowers white, 4-7 mm long; sepals 5, unequal, suborbicular, concave, tomentulose, ciliolate (the largest to 5.3 mm long); petals 4, equaling or exceeding sepals, glabrous, the scales two-thirds to three-fourths as long as petals (+/- enclosed within concavity of petal), the margin and reflexed appendage markedly bearded, the crest prominent, orange, the glands of the anterior petals whitish, erect, flattened laterally, broader than high, pubescent especially at base; stamens 7 or 8; filaments densely villous, to 3 mm long, held closely together around pistil; anthers dehiscing laterally; ovary bearded at base of staminate styles; styles 3, in staminate flowers short and reduced (held well below the anthers), in bisexual flowers 3-branched to below the middle, to 2.3 mm long, held well above the anthers, the unbranched part pubescent. Capsules ellipsoid to turbinate, 3-5 cm long, rounded to subcordate and apiculate at apex, tapered to base, terete to broadly 3-sided, striate, puberulent to glabrous; seed solitary, to 2 cm long. Croat 4814, 5363. Costa Rica (Atlantic slope and the Osa Peninsula) south to Venezuela and the western and south-central parts of the Amazon basin from the Rio Madeira in Brazil to Peru and Bolivia. In Panama, known from tropical moist forest in the Canal Zone, Bocas del Toro, San Blas, Chiriqui, Los Santos, Panama, and Darien. See Fig. 341.