Perennial climber; rootstock a rather elongated forking subterranean rough-barked woody tuber; stems annual, herbaceous, pubescent with rather spreading crisped hairs.. Leaves variable; blade ovate-cordate and unlobed or broadly ovate-reniform in outline and palmately 3–5-lobed, scabrid-hairy or-punctate above, scabrid-hairy on the nerves beneath, sinuate-toothed, 30–117 mm. long, 41–166 mm. broad; lobes often ± rounded, somewhat lobulate, narrowed below, with the central largest; petiole 20–74 mm. long, densely woolly laterally with long soft crisped hairs.. Tendrils simple.. Probracts suborbicular, ± 3 mm. long and 4 mm. broad, crimson.. Male flowers in sessile or shortly pedunculate 1–3-flowered clusters, often with a coaxillary solitary flower; peduncle 0–3 mm. long; pedicels 5–27 mm. long; receptacle-tube broadly obconic, 5.5–8 mm. long; lobes lanceolate, 3–8 mm. long, with the apex inrolled and often a little expanded; corolla yellow with green veins, with the lobes 11–18 mm. long, 8.5–9 mm. broad, united in lower half; stamens 3.. Female flowers solitary on ± 5 mm. long stalks; ovary fusiform, 15–19 mm. long, 4.5–6.5 mm. across; receptacle-tube broadly campanulate, 2.5–4 mm. long, densely glandular-hairy internally near the base; lobes subulate-lanceolate, 3.5–5 mm. long; corolla-lobes 10–13 mm. long, 6.5–7.5 mm. broad, united in lower two-thirds.. Fruit on a ± 7 mm. long stalk, ellipsoid, 38–44 mm. long, 19–24 mm. across.
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