This is a species plant very similar in growth to its close relatives C. rhederiana and C. connata. This particular plant was grown from seed collected by Bleddyn & Sue Crug in the remote part of the Arun Valley, on the Tibetan border with North-eastern Nepal at 2800m. He was not absolutely sure when I obtained the plant from him that it was C.confusa but we compared the growth to that of a plant he knew to be correct, plus the seed was obtained in the same small area that C.confusa was found to be growing and thankfully it turned out to be correct.
Although bought as a two litre plant, the amount of growth was small, but after planting in a good nutrient rich soil in late July the plant proceeded to put on 8' or 240 cm of growth in the space of 10 weeks at which point the flower heads could be seen to be forming at the leaf axils.
By now it was mid October and the average temperature was dropping and its vigour was also dropping exponentially. By early November (frosts not yet appearing on the horizon) the flowers had grown to the size in the last photo but had not yet started to open.
By mid November the first frost arrived and I decided to cheat by bringing in one of the more mature stems and placing it indoors in a sunny position. Within a few days the buds had opened and after a week of opening I took the flower shots you can see now.
I would thus have to surmise that its flowering period would be November-January in cultivation although with its late start in life I think this could be slightly wrong.
Hopefully next year it may produce flowers a little nearer to its flowering period in the wild which is August to October although our climate I don't think, would bring it into flower as early as these quoted months.
The sepals can be seen to be of a reddish brown to almost chocolate brown depending on the amount of sun reaching the flower and from which angle the flower is viewed. The tips of the sepals recurve to reveal the same outer colour on the inside.
The filaments are pale yellow turning green towards the top, while the anthers are yellow with a green connective.



The grenish white stigma is nearly a third longer than the length of the stamens and due to the sepals recurving at the tips actually sticks out ever so slightly longer than the sepal length.
This multi stemmed pruning group 3 (hard prune) climbing plant bears very coarse trifoliate mid green leaves.
The leaf nodes on this particular species of plant become very large almost disc-like although I did not see this on this plant but I put that down to its late planting.
I suppose this could only be classed as a collectors plant and unfortunatelythere is no longer a supplier here in the UK.

Flower Colour	-	The pendant flowers are reddish-brown to chocolate brown with recurving tips.
Pruning Group	-	Group 3 (Hard prune)
Hardiness	-	I believe zone 6 has been quoted for this species although I find this somewhat dubious and would quote around zone 8-9 as the plant above did not survive the winter where we only saw -5 deg C although this is not to say that the slightly damp soil might have killed it off.
Height	-	15' or 450 cm
Flowering Season	-	November-January (outside, if you're lucky)
Aspect	-	Warm Sunny site with shaded base
Fragrant	-	No
Evergreen	-	No
Other info	-	Distinguished from its close relatives by its large disc-like leaf axils.