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Monoecious climbing or trailing annual herbs, hirsute with simple hairs. Tendrils 2-or 3-branched. Leaves simple, palmately lobed, subtended by ovate or oblong probract. Male flowers solitary, pedicellate; hypanthium broadly campanulate; calyx 5-lobed, lobes lanceolate; corolla deeply 5-lobed, lobes obovate to spathulate, yellow; stamens 3, inserted towards base of hypanthium; filaments short, broadened towards base; connective broad, trilobed; anthers bilocular; locules flexuose, triplicate; disc gland-like. Female flowers solitary, pedicellate; perianth similar to male; staminodes 3; ovary ovoid, pilose; ovules many, horizontal; style short, thick, inserted in thickened disc; stigmas 3, undulate. Fruit large, fleshy with a hard rind, globose, ovoid or cylindrical-ellipsoidal, waxy. Seeds numerous, ovate, compressed, margined, buff.
Herbs, creeping, annual, all parts densely hispid. Leaves palmately 5-lobed; petiole eglandular. Tendrils 2-or 3-fid. Plants usually monoecious; flowers solitary. Male flowers: calyx tube broadly campanulate; segments reflexed, almost leaflike, dentate; corolla rotate, usually 5-lobed; segments obovate, entire; stamens 3, free, inserted on corolla tube; filaments short; anthers one 1-celled, two 2-celled; anther cells very sigmoid-flexuous; connective margined; pistillode glandlike. Female flowers: calyx and corolla as in male flowers; staminodes 3; ovary ovoid; ovules numerous, horizontal; style inserted on disk; stigmas 3, expanded, 2-lobed. Fruit large, oblong, baccate, terete, hispid, glaucous, indehiscent. Seeds numerous, ovoid-oblong, compressed, margin tumid.
