Compilation
Rhynchocarpa hirtella

Climber or trailer to 2 m. or more; stems annual from a perennial tuberous rootstock, shortly ± spreading-hairy, also with a few longer scattered setae, becoming thickened at the base with greyish smooth longitudinally fissured bark. Leaf-blade broadly ovate- or reniform-cordate in outline, rather softly to somewhat scabrid-hairy, sinuate-toothed, acute to rounded and apiculate, 30–105 mm. long, 36–130 mm. broad, usually palmately ± 3–5 lobed; lobes ovate-triangular, ± rounded above and not narrowed below, to elliptic or narrowly elliptic and distinctly narrowed below; petiole 14–65 mm. long, its pubescence similar to that of stem but the larger setae more prominent. Tendrils bifid, very rarely simple. Monoecious. Male flowers in 30–160 mm. long, 6–29-flowered rather lax pedunculate racemes; peduncle 16–126 mm. long; pedicels 2–8 mm. long, shortly and finely spreading-hairy; receptacle-tube campanulate, expanded above, 2–3 mm. long; lobes reflexed, triangular, triangular-acuminate or lanceolate, 2.5–5 mm. long; petals pale greenish-white or greenish-yellow, reflexed or spreading, 3.5–6 mm. long, 1.5–3.5 mm. broad; stamens 5; filaments short, hairy at the base inside. Female flowers solitary, on 1.5–30 mm. long stalks; ovary fusiform, sometimes ± collared at the base, hairy, 9–20mm. long, 1.5–4 mm. across; receptacle-tube 1.5–2 mm. long; lobes lanceolate, 3–6 mm. long; petals 5–6 mm. long, 2–2.5 mm. broad. Fruit on a 4–50 mm. long stalk, baccate, elongated-ovoid, ovoid-cylindrical or conical, tapered and often beaked at the apex, ± truncate at the base, orange-red and dehiscing by a longitudinal slit, 38–90 mm. long, 15–26 mm. across. Seeds globose, bordered, smooth, 3.7 × 3.5–4 × 3–3.5 mm. Fig. 23/1–6, p. 132.