Perennial vine (but often flowering the first year); stems woody and thickened at base, above twining and climbing, 1.5-5 mm thick or more; aerial stems sub-terete, somewhat channeled, green, more or less hispid, the young tips densely hispid-puberulent. Leaves alternate; stipules becoming reflexed and brownish, ovate-lanceolate, acute, pubescent and ciliate abaxially, nearly glabrous adaxially (except near base), obscurely striate, (2-) 3-5.5 mm long, 1.5-3 mm broad; petiole more or lesshispid as the stems, subterete, 2-12 cm long; stipels greenish, lanceolate, 1-3 mm long, glandular at base, ciliate and pubescent (especially abaxially); blades thinly to rather stiffly chartaceous, cordate at base, above greenish, rather sparsely pubes-cent, and somewhat rugose, beneath paler and more densely pubescent; usually deeply 3-lobed, sometimes 5-lobed, the lobes cut more than l2 way to the base, rarely unlobed, usually with 5 main veins at base, mostly 3-10 cm long and 2.5-11 cm broad, the lateral lobes asymmetrically elliptic or ovate, abruptly acute or acuminate, the middle lobe elliptic-oblong or-obovate, abruptly narrowed to a short acuminate tip, 2-7 cm long, 1-5 cm broad, the veins conspicuously raised beneath, the tertiary veinlets tending to be scalariformly parallel. Inflorescences 1 or 2 on short axillary shoots (axis usually 5-10 mm long), subtended by reduced leaves; peduncles 2.5-5 cm long at anthesis, becoming 4-6 cm long in fruit. Involucral bracts 3-lobed ca halfway to the base, minutely glandular-toothed along the margin, generally 5-veined from the base, at anthesis distinctly whitish (lobe-tips sometimes remaining green), (1.5-) 2.5-3 cm long and broad later turning green and becoming (2-)3-3.5 cm long and broad, pubescent with both crisped and stinging hairs (less densely to very sparsely so on the adaxial side); stipules reflexed, asymmetrically ovate-or oblong-lanceolate, greenish, ciliate-pubescent on both sides, ca 4-7.5 mm long. Pistillate cymule sessile, 3-flowered; adaxial bractlets 2 or coalesced into 1, ca 3-6 mm high, whitish, broader than high, sericeous on both sides, margins ciliate but not glandular, crystalliferous hairs sparse, the abaxial bractlet ca 4-6 mm high, oblong, somewhat greenish, similarly pubescent, crystalliferous hairs absent. Staminate cymule terminal, peduncle densely hirsutu-lous, 2.5-3.5 mm long; involucel 2-lipped, subglabrous, ca 2-4 mm high and 6-7.5 mm broad, with mostly 9 or 10 male flowers in 3 cymules; ceriferous bractlets form-ing 2 laminate masses, the secretion copious and resinous. Staminate flowers with pedicels short and stout (1 mm long or less); buds ca 2 mm in diam, appearing glabrous (minutely hispidulous with crystalliferous hairs), splitting at anthesis into (3-)4 acute green lobes; stamens ca 25-35, the staminal column ca 1-1.3 mm long, the filament tips free, 0.1-0.2 mm long, the anthers deeply 4-sulcate, ca 0.4-0.6 mm long. Pistillate flowers subsessile at anthesis; calyx-lobes 8-12, unequal, deeply fimbriate lobed, the lobes ca 3-5 on a side, subulate, gland-tipped; ovary minutely hispidulous, oblate, the style cylindrical, 4-8 mm long, abruptly dilated distally into peltate stigma ca 0.8-1.3 mm across. Central fruiting pedicel up to ca 1.2 cm long, lateral pedicels shorter; fruiting calyx-lobes mostly 5-9 mm long, 0.4-0.8 mm broad, with conspicuously gland-tipped cilia, sharp-pointed hairs ca 1-1.5 mm long and minute crystalliferous hairs (less than 0.5 mm long). Capsules oblate, more or less smooth (minutely hispidulous), ca 8.5-10 mm in diam, the cocci distinctly cari-nate, ca 5.5-7.5 mm long; seeds subglobose, smooth, with ricinoid brown-and-gray mottling, (3-) 3.5-4(-4.6) mm across.
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