Description
Key Characters:
Growth Form:
Shrubs or small trees 2–10 m tall.
Stems:
Branches lepidote to puberulent.
Roots:
Leaves:
Leaves compound.
Opposite.
The first pair of leaves on a new branch often simple. leaflets ovate–lanceolate to elliptic or linear–lanceolate, 2.4–15 cm long, 1–3 cm wide, progressively larger distally; leaves with (3–)5–7(–9) leaflets.
Upper surfaces glabrous; lower surfaces with scattered hairs towards the midrib.
Leaflet margins serrate.
Petiolate.
Stipules absent.
Flowers:
Flowers in terminal or subterminal racemes.
Flowers bisexual (perfect), usually large and showy.
Calyx elongate, cup-like, 0.3–7 cm long, evenly 5-toothed, the teeth ca. 1 mm long.
Corolla zygomorphic, 5-lobed, yellow with 7 reddish lines in the throat and 2 faint red lines on top of the throat ridges, 3.5–6 cm long, 1.2–2.4 cm wide at the mouth, glabrous externally, pubescent within with glandular hairs at the point of filament insertion and with a few twisted hairs in the sinus and on the throat ridges.
Stamens 4, with an additional staminode, occasionally only 2 Stamens fertile with 3 staminodes; filaments attached to corolla tube, alternate with the lobes; anthers usually dithecal, opening by longitudinal slits.
Ovary superior, 2-carpellate, with as many cells, sometimes 1-celled or 4-celled, placentation axile or in 1-celled ovary with 2 or 4 intruded parietal placentas; ovules anatropous or hemitropous, often erect; ovules in 2 series per cell; style 1; stigma 2-lobed.
Fruit:
Fruit a smooth linear capsules; somewhat compressed parallel to the septum; but dehiscing at right angles to it; capsules linear; nearly rounded when fresh; tapering at both ends; 7–21 cm long; 0.5–0.7 cm in diameter.
Seeds 0.3–0.5 cm long; 2.4–2.7 cm wide; winged; the wings hyaline–membranous; sharply demarcated from the seed body; endosperm absent; rarely present and oily.
Ploidy:
2n = 36; 40
Habitat:
Sparingly naturalized in dry to mesic areas.
Elevation Range: