A prostrate creeping or climbing perennial herb; stems up to 3.5 m long from a woody rootstock, hirsute and pubescent.Stipules 5–6 mm long, lanceolate.Petioles 3–6.5 cm long.Leaves 5-partite; the median lobe 5.5–11 × 1–2.5 cm, lanceolate to elliptic-lanceolate, acute at the apex, serrate to subentire, constricted at the base, lateral nerves in 10 pairs; the lateral lobes slightly successively smaller; base of the leaf deeply cordate; stipels 1.5 mm long; pubescence chiefly confined to the midrib, main veins and margins; dark green on leaf uper surface, lighter beneath.Inflorescences axillary; peduncles 4–16 cm long, leafless or with a small tripartite leaf near the base; bract stipules the same as the foliar stipules; bracts 3.5–6 × 1.5–4 cm, ovate in outline, 3-lobed, the abaxial somewhat more deeply lobed than the adaxial, the lobes lanceolate, acute or subacute, glandular-serrate, rounded-cuneate, truncate or shallowly cordate at the base, 7–9-nerved from the base, pubescent without, glabrous within, pale lemon-yellow to greenish-yellow.Male peduncles 5 mm long, involucre 8 mm across, (7)9–11-flowered; mass of fused bracts and aborted flowers adaxial, flattened.Male flowers: pedicels 3 mm long; calyx lobes 5, 2 mm long, ovate or lanceolate, subglabrous; stamens c. 25.Female bracts 4, very unequal; the adaxial bracts 1.5 × 2 mm and bifid, the abaxial bracts 2 × 3 mm and bifid to 5 × 3 mm and ovate, the lateral bracts 1–2 × 0.5–1 mm, elliptic; bracts all ciliate.Female flowers subsessile, but developing pedicels up to 1 cm long in fruit; sepals 10–12, sepal rhachis 1 mm long and extending to 1–1.5 cm in fruit, linear, lateral lobules of the sepals 10–11-paired, gland-tipped, pubescent and with urticating hairs; ovary 1 mm in diameter, pubescent; stylar column 0.8–1 cm long, dilated and excavated at the apex.Fruit 5 × 9 mm, ± smooth, hispidulous, reddish-brown or blackish.Seeds 4 × 4 mm, ± smooth, brownish, streaked or mottled with pale grey.