Lophospermum scandens is a scambling or climbing herbaceous perennial native to south central Mexico, with red-violet and white tubular flowers and toothed heart-shaped leaves.

It grows at elevations between 1,400 and 2,400 m (4,600 and 7,900 ft) in dry habitats, including deciduous oak forests and recent lava flows.

The true Maurandya scandens is a different species, with shorter flowers and smaller leaves without distinct marginal teeth.

The leaf stalks (petioles) are 30–50 mm (1.2–2.0 in) long, occasionally twining to grasp supports, thus enabling the plant to climb.

Two prominent folds (plicae) run along the length of the base of the flower tube, bearing numerous yellow hairs less than 1 mm (0.04 in) long.

[2] Lophospermum scandens was first collected by Martín Sessé and José Mariano Mociño, probably in 1789 during a scientific expedition in what is now Mexico but was then New Spain.

David Don later realized that it was a new species, and corrected the error in a subsequent note in The British Flower Garden, giving the illustrated plant the new name L. erubescens.

[3]) Wayne J. Elisens in his 1985 monograph considered Lophospermum and Maurandya to be distinct genera,[2] a view since confirmed by molecular phylogenetic studies.

It grows in deciduous oak forests and scrub, on cliffs, canyon walls, and rocky outcrops, including recent lava flows, in dry habitats.

It shows characteristic adaptations to this mode of pollination, having long-tubed flowers in shades of red with open throats.

The nectar produced by the flowers is typical of those pollinated by hummingbirds, being high in sucrose and low in glucose relative to fructose.

[8] Lophospermum scandens was described in cultivation in the Liverpool Botanic Garden in 1836, where it was trained against a south wall.

Maurandya has smooth rather than hairy leaves with entire rather than toothed margins, and smaller flowers with a tube at most about 30 mm (1.2 in) long.