A climbing shrub with terete or obscurely angular, smooth, sulcate, striated branches. Leaf-stalks shorter than the blades, channelled on the upper surface, twisted, deflexed and having two sessile glands on each side at the apex; leaf-blades deeply palmately lobed, lobes membranous, smooth, glaucous beneath, oblong, obtuse, tapering at the base into a short petiolule, entire or irregularly pinnately lobed, midrib prominent on the under surface; 3–5 in. long, 1–2 in. wide, the central lobe largest. Stipules minute, awl-shaped, caducous. Peduncle axillary, as long as the leaf, bearing a few-flowered cyme in the middle and prolonged into a tendril. Male fl.: Calyx 3/4 in. long, limb divided into 5 entire linear-oblong divisions. Petals membranous, entire, their long stalks adherent for the greater portion of their length to the inner surface of the calyx-tube, included. Corona of 5 short flat capitate filaments, alternating with the petals. Stamens 5, filaments monadelphous at the base, above free, thread-like; anthers innate, linear-oblong, obtuse, 2-lobed. Rudiment of the pistil minute. Ovary (according to Klotzsch) stipitate, oblong, 1-celled; ovules numerous, on 3 parietal placentas; style very short; stigmas 3, large, reniform. Fruit stipitate, stipes encircled with the persistent remnant of the calyx, oblong, obtuse, smooth, 2–3 in. long, 3-valved, valves coriaceous, orange-red, smooth. Seeds compressed, lenticular, pitted, surrounded by a membranous aril.
