Slender climber with underground tuber. Stems and often petioles set with recurved prickles. Leaves peltate, palmately veined. Inflorescences supra-axillary or terminal, cymose or composed of a raceme of cymes, without accrescent bracts. Male flowers: sepals 6 in 2 whorls, imbricate; petals 6; stamens 3; filaments connate, separating at apex of column but anthers partly joined; anthers dehiscing subvertically to obliquely. Female flowers: sepals and petals as in male; staminodes absent; carpels 3; stigma entire, recurved. Drupes curved, without stipe or carpophore; style-scar near base; endocarp bony, transversely ridged on dorsal band (which is obliquely and broadly horseshoe-shaped), with margin of the condyle radially ridged; very small lateral excentric perforation present. Seed curved, bean-shaped; embryo semi-annular, surrounded by endosperm; cotyledons ± equalling radicle.
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