Perennial with tuberous rootstock, climbing or trailing to 4 m. Stems herbaceous, angled, ± crisped-pubescent. Leaves pedately 3–5-foliolate; middle leaflet largest, elliptic, ovate-lanceolate, ovate or broadly ovate, obtuse or subtruncate at the base, acuminate, slightly apiculate, subentire and remotely denticulate to distinctly sinuate-toothed, almost glabrous to distinctly pubescent, 27–130 mm. long, 9–50 mm. broad; lateral leaflets similar but smaller and with blunter apices, sometimes lobed on the outer side at the base; central petiolule 4–27 mm. long; petiole 7–40 mm. long. Tendrils bifid, rarely simple. Dioecious or monoecious. Male flowers 5–15, subumbellate on a 40–80 mm. long peduncle; bract subtending pedicels broadly obovate-orbicular, 13–30 mm. long, 7–40 mm. broad; pedicels 5–10 mm. long; receptacle-tube cylindrical below, expanded, campanulate above, like the lobes dark brownish-green to purplish or almost black, sometimes green with darker nerves, 9–11 mm. long; lobes broadly triangular or triangular-acuminate, acute, 3–12 mm. long; corolla pale yellow or pale orange-yellow with darker throat and a dark purple or black eye; petals free, lingulate, slightly apiculate, 12–15 mm. long, 6–8 mm. broad; basal scales 2, obsolescent; stamens 3; thecae straight, those of one double stamen very unequal; connective narrow. Female flowers ebracteate, pubescent, on 11–13 mm. long stalks; ovary shortly hairy, fusiform and beaked, 10-ribbed, 30–35 mm. long, 4–5 mm. across; receptacle-tube shallow, 3 mm. long; lobes triangular-acuminate, 6–11 mm. long; style long. Fruit on a 23–60 mm. long stalk, spindle-shaped, beaked, with ± 10 toothed longitudinal wings or ridges, fleshy, orange, ± 60 mm. long and 20 mm. across, dehiscent into 3 valves. Seeds many, tumid, ± 8 × 7 × 4 mm.; faces with rugose sculpturing; margins shallowly grooved, smooth (fig. 3/13, p. 25).
