| General Information |
| Distribution | Tropical America, now cultivated and naturalized in other tropical areas including the Marquesas, Hawaiian, and Cook Islands, Fiji, and Tonga.In the Hawaiian Islands,
naturalized on
Kaua`i.
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Habit
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Glabrous vine, climbing by tendrils; main stem woody, to 1 cm in diameter.
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Leaves
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Leaves petiolate; blade entire, ovate, 13‒20 cm long, 6.5‒11.5 cm wide, glossy green adaxially, paler abaxially, apex short-acuminate, base rounded to subcordate, chartaceous, glabrous, secondary veins 6‒8 pairs, reddish when fresh; petiole 3‒4 cm long with 1‒2 pairs of sessile glands; stipules ovate-lanceolate, 4‒12 mm long, 1‒4 mm wide, apex acuminate, soon deciduous.
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Flowers
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Inflorescences axillary, a solitary flower, floral bracts large, subglobose, 3-parted, lobes 4‒5 cm long, 4‒4.5 cm wide, broadly ovate, thin, greenish white, nearly enclosing the mature fruit, peduncle 3.5‒4.5 cm long. Flowers short-pedicellate or sessile, perianth with tepals pale greenish yellow to white mottled with brick red or purple; corona filaments banded purple and white, reddish at base.
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Fruit
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Fruit spheroid or broadly ellipsoid, 3.5‒4 cm in diameter, fruit wall 4‒5 mm thick, hard and woody, yellowish green when ripe.
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Seeds
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Seeds numerous, irregularly ovoid-ellipsoid or discoidal, compressed, 4.5‒6 mm long, 4‒4.5 mm wide, testa brown, deeply foveolate, aril translucent yellow or white.
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Contributor
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David Lorence
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