Liana, 5–22 m long, or less often a sarmentose shrub 0.6–4 m high, deciduous, with the flowers appearing after the leaves; trunk to 10 cm in diameter, with corky ridges to 1.8 cm high and 5 cm long; branches with compressed corky triangles at the nodes; branchlets glabrous; latex white. Leaves opposite; blade elliptic or ovate to obovate, 2–14 cm long, 2.5–6.5 cm wide, base rounded or cuneate, apex mucronate or acuminate, glabrous; petiole 3–11 mm long. Inflorescence sessile or pedunculate, 1–3-flowered, glabrous or sparsely puberulous in all parts; pedicels 1–7.5 mm long. Flowers fragrant; sepals ovate, 3–10 mm long, acute or apiculate; corolla tube white and red, 22–43 mm long, corolla lobes ovate, 20–57 mm long, 10–27 mm wide, acuminate, corona lobes 2–6 mm long. Fruit grey- or purplish black, mericarps ± opposite-divergent, narrowly ellipsoid, 12–26 cm long, 3–4.5 cm in diameter, apex obtuse, glabrous; seed 10–15 mm long, densely pubescent, with a stalked coma 5–12 cm long.
