Climber; stems perennial, arising from a massive woody rootstock with a thick furrowed bark; young stems herbaceous, finely and densely short-hairy; older stems becoming woody and thickened with a thin light greyish-brown bark.. Leaf-blade ovate-or reniform-cordate in outline, with a dense creamy or light brown tomentum beneath when young, becoming less dense when the leaves expand, minutely scabrid-punctate above, 70–80 mm. long, 86–110 mm. broad, palmately 5-lobed; lobes elliptic in outline, 3-lobulate, apiculate at the apices and at the apices of the lobules; petiole 42–47 mm. long, finely hairy like the young stems.. Flowers appearing when the leaves are very small and unexpanded.. Male flowers solitary on 12–30 mm. long pedicels; receptacle-tube turbinate-cylindrieal, expanded above, finely and densely pubescent outside, hairy inside about the insertion of the filaments, 13–26 mm. long; lobes ovate, finely and densely pubescent, sometimes slightly toothed on the margins below the apex, 4.5–9 mm. long; petals yellow, free, 12–20 mm. long, 9–14 mm. broad; stamens 5 or 3; filaments inserted about the middle of the receptacle-tube, hairy at the base; thecae convoluted.. Female flowers on 15–22 mm. long stalks; ovary cylindrical or ellipsoid-cylindrical, shortly and densely pubescent; receptacle-tube campanulate-urceolate, 9–10 mm. long; lobes ovate-lanceolate, obtuse or acute, 4–6 mm. long, 1.5–2 mm. broad, pubescent; staminodes 3, resembling stamens, or reduced to short subulae; style long.. Fruit on a stout 20–30 mm. long stalk, ovoid, somewhat beaked, dull orange with 10 darker longitudinal lines, crowned with the persistent receptacle, 66–90 mm. long, 28–45 mm. across, glabrous or shortly and finely pubescent.. Seeds asymmetrically ovate in outline, 11–14 × 8–9 × 4–4.5 mm.; testa fibrillose, with a golden-brown metallic lustre.
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