Climber or trailer to 4 m.; rootstock tuberous; young stems green, ± hairy, becoming glabrous and white-dotted on the ridges, later smooth with thin pale brown bark, older stems woody, thickened at base into the rootstock.. Leaf-blade reniform-cordate in outline, scabrid above, scabrid-hairy on the nerves beneath, entire or ± sinuate with or without minute apiculate teeth, 17–81 mm. long, 20–120 mm. broad, usually palmately ± deeply 5-lobed; lobes obovate or bluntly rhombic in outline, narrowed below, ± rounded-lobulate, obtuse, rounded or retuse and apiculate, with the middle lobe largest; petiole 6–61 mm. long, thickening when old and sometimes persistent after fall of leaf-blade, pubescent with forward-pointing scabrid hairs.. Tendrils simple.. Male flowers solitary or paired; pedicels 4–5 mm. long; receptacle-tube pale green, 3–4 mm. long; lobes triangular-lanceolate, recurved, 2–4.5 mm. long; corolla dull yellow, heavily green-veined, with the lobes 8–10 mm. long and ± 4 mm. broad, united in lower half or quarter; stamens 3.. Female flowers solitary, on 2 mm. long stalks; ovary subglabrous or hairy, 6.5–7 mm. long, 3–3.5 mm. across; receptacle-tube 2.5–3 mm. long, densely glandular-hairy inside at the mouth; lobes lanceolate, 5–5.5 mm. long; corolla-lobes (4–)5, ± 12 mm. long and 6 mm. broad, united in lower half (but corolla sometimes unequally lobed).. Fruit on a 4–8 mm. long stalk, red with green and orange markings, subglobose or ellipsoid, 22–43 mm. long, 18–30 mm. across.. Seeds asymmetrically ovate in outline, slightly broadened and emarginate at the narrower end, compressed, with the margins comparatively thick and grooved, 5 × 2 × 1.5 mm.
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