Coccinia rehmannii Cogn.

Stems usually climbing, older ones perennial, several meters long, up to 2 cm in diam., not forming a corky bark but retaining a greyish or greyish-green rather smooth outer layer, covered mainly on the angles with whitish or greyish longitudinally arranged elliptic or oblong scaly specks; younger stems firmly herbaceous, rather slender, angular and sulcate, when quite young usually rather densely covered with a short pubescence but as a rule soon glabrous. Leaves rather rigidly herbaceous, paler on lower surface, pentagonal-suborbicular or pentagonal-cordate in outline, generally deeply palmately 3(-5)-lobed; rarely shallowly-5-lobed, on both surfaces hairy when quite young but usually soon glabrescent and becoming scabrid with raised small pustules, or on the upper surface with adpressed whitish scales; the main nerves usually retaining some short setose hairs; the margin slightly thickened, somewhat cartilaginous and scabrid, ciliate with short curved aculeate hairs; the lobes of the lamina usually coarsely and jaggedly lobulate to coarsely pinnatisect with acute or subacute narrowly oblong to linear, mucronate lobes and lobules, more rarely the lobes broader, somewhat rhomboid or oblong-cuneate, with coarsely dentate to subentire margins and sometimes rounded, often abruptly cuspidate-mucronate apex, very rarely (in shallowly palmatilobed leaves) the lobes ovate-triangular to broadly triangular, dentate, acute; the basal sinus usually deep and rather narrow; lamina usually 3-6 cm long and as wide, rarely attaining 11 x 11 cm; petioles somewhat dorso-laterally flattened, angular-sulcate and bearing on the ridges (mainly on the lateral sides) rows of stiff short bristly hairs, sometimes ultimately glabrescent, usually under 2 cm long but occasionally attaining 4 cm. Tendrils simple, usually slender, at first somewhat hispidulous mainly towards the somewhat incrassate base, but as a rule soon quite glabrous. Male flowers solitary or occasionally fasciculate, rarely racemose on a short (up to about 1 cm long) common peduncle; pedicels under 3 cm, but almost always under 2 cm long, slender to almost filiform, subterete or somewhat angular, somewhat hairy, at the apex under the calyx with an articulation which appears somewhat peltate after the flower has fallen off. Calyx hairy with curved multicellular, articular hairs, usually rather densely so, rarely subglabrous; receptacle obconical to somewhat cup-shaped, 4-6 mm high and 6-9 mm in diam., sepals linear-lanceolate, tapering into a subulate apex, 6-9 mm long and 0.5-1 mm wide. Corolla cream to pale yellow, often with a buffy tinge, green-veined, hairy on the main veins, 22-28 mm long; the lobes somewhat triangular and cuspidate-mucronate at their tips. Female flowers solitary; pedicels usually under 1 cm but occasionally up to 2 cm long, somewhat sulcate, rather slender but incrassate and up to 4 mm thick in fruit. Ovary fusiform-ellipsoid to broadly ellipsoid, usually densely pubescent with curved articulated multicellular hairs but occasionally glabrous, about 1 cm long. Sepals linear-lanceolate or somewhat oblanceolate, 3-6 mm long. Corolla as in the male flower. Fruit subglobose or broadly ellipsoid, sometimes contracted at the base just above the stalk, when young white-and-green mottled, the white spots in rather vaguely defined longitudinal bands, when ripe quite smooth and glabrous, turning scarlet, 3-4.5 cm long and 2-3.5 cm in diam. Seeds a dirty white, oblong or somewhat falcate, rounded at the apex, usually somewhat contracted above the truncate to faintly bilobed base, 6-7 mm long, 2.5-3 mm broad and about 1.5 mm thick.

A tropical plant. Plants can tolerate occasional frosts. Plants grow up to 1000 m altitude or higher. They occur on dry sandy soils. They have some salt tolerance. It can grow in arid places.

The tubers are eaten. They must be roasted or boiled and are normally then peeled. The thick juicy stems are eaten after roasting. The leaves are cooked and eaten. The fruit can be eaten. Caution: The fruit are claimed to cause sore eyes.

Tubers extend 70 cm into the ground which takes extensive digging to harvest them.