Pyrostegia venusta.
Family Bignoniaceae.
Common names include Flame Vine and Orange Trumpet Vine.
An evergreen, fast growing, woody vine climbing by tendrils.
Long, branching stems grow metres high covered in dense foliage.
The small woody branches have 6 to 8 ribs.
The oppositely inserted leaves are up to 10 cm long.
They can have 3 leaflets, 2 leaflets with a terminal tendril or just 2 leaflets.
Leaflets, on short stalks, are ovate to elliptic with pointed tips.
Tendrils are up to 15 cm long, coiled and branched into 3.
Terminal or axillary inflorescences are up to 15 cm long.
There are up to 20 flowers in each and they may almost cover the vine.
The bell-shaped calyx, about 6 mm long, mostly has a flat rim or 5 very short teeth.
The orange to reddish-orange funnel-shaped flowers are up to 8 cm long.
The sometimes curved tube, narrower at the base, is up to 1.2 cm wide at the top.
The 5 lobes, up to 2 cm long, curl backwards and are hairy.
The single reddish style, with a bilobed stigma, extends past the end of the corolla tube.
One or both pairs of stamens also extend beyond the corolla.
A yellow disc surrounds the ovary.
The fruit are flattened capsules up to about 30 cm long.
The seeds have brownish wings.
The only other species is Pyrostegia millingtonioides.
J.F.
