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A climbing or trailing herb. The stems lie along the ground and can be 15 m long. The stems are slender. The leaf blade is 8-16 cm long by 5-20 cm wide. The leaves vary. They may not have lobes or can have 3-5 lobes arranged like fingers on a hand. They are leathery and have widely spaced teeth along the edge. There are tendrils. Plants are separately male and female. The male flowers are stout and there are 3-25 in a group. The female flowers are more dense and with 2-12 flowers. They are yellow to orange. The fruit is oval and 4 cm long by 3 cm wide. They are smooth and red. They are usually in clusters.
Leaf-lamina 7·5–16 × 5–20 cm., broadly ovate or ovate in outline, cordate, weakly cordate or subtruncate, dark green, glossy, rather coriaceous, glabrous except for fine hairs on veins above, scabrid-punctate, unlobed and 3–5-angled or shallowly to deeply palmately 3–5-lobed, the lobes triangular, ovate, broadly elliptic, ovate-oblong or oblong-elliptic, plane and remotely denticulate to rather prominently sinuate-dentate, acute to obtuse, apiculate, the central largest.
male flowers in short, stout, 3–25-flowered bracteate racemes; peduncle 1–1·5 cm. long, puberulous; pedicels very short. Receptacle-tube c. 15 mm. long, cylindrical below, expanded above, lobes 3–8 mm. long, subulate. Corolla rich yellow or orange-yellow, the lobes 1–2 × 0·5–1 cm., apiculate, united to above the middle.
Female flowers in short, dense, 2–12-flowered bracteate racemes, rarely solitary; peduncle 0.3–1 cm. long; pedicels 1·5–7 mm. long; ovary 8–12·5 × 2–3 mm., ellipsoid, glabrous; receptacle-tube 2–3·5 mm. long, campanulate-cylindrical, lobes small, 1·5–2 mm. long, dentiform; corolla as in male flowers.
Fruits 2–4 × 1·5–2·5 cm. usually in racemose clusters, rarely solitary, ellipsoid, rounded, smooth, red; fruit-stalk rather stout, 0·3–1 cm. long.
Seeds 5 × 2·2–3 × 1–1·2 mm., ovate, compressed, margined; testa ± fibrillose.
Probracts 3–10 mm. long, broadly spathulate.
Stems scandent, to 15 m., almost glabrous.
Petioles 1–11 cm. long, puberulous.
A climber, 15–20 ft. high
Tendrils 2-fid.
Flowers yellow.
