Gerrardanthus macrorhizus Harv. ex Benth. & Hook.F.

Perennial climber. Tuber flattened, bitter, 30-60 cm long and up to 1.5 m in diam. Stems woody, high-climbing; ultimate portions slender, angular and strongly sulcate when dry. Leaves glabrous, drying membranous, broadly ovate-cordate, subtriangular-hastate or pentagonal in outline, more or less angular to 3-7-lobed, 3-8 cm long and wide, shallowly and broadly cordate, rarely more deeply so at the base; the margin entire; the lobes unequal with the terminal one the longest, usually triangular and rounded to subacute, mucronate; the terminal one often more acute and with a longer mucro; petioles slender, smooth or somewhat sulcate, glabrous, 1.5-4 cm long. Tendrils elongate, slender, glabrous. Male flowers: common peduncle often very short or wanting and flowers as if fascicled; pedicels very slender, 0.5-3 cm long; sepals oblong, obtuse, 3 mm long, corolla rotate, glabrous, brownish, about 12 mm in diam., segments at the apex often somewhat emarginate; filaments filiform, about 1.5 mm long; anthers horizontal, without spur-like appendage. Female flowers solitary; peduncle filiform, 1-2 cm long, minutely bracteate at the base; ovary narrowly obconical, 1.5 cm long, 2-2.5 mm thick; styles 3, about 2 mm long. Fruit obconical-subcylindric, narrowed at the base, drying brownish-yellow, glabrous and smooth, faintly angular and with obscure longitudinal ribs, 5-6.5 cm long and 15-22 mm in diam. Seeds bright brown, compressed, linear-oblong, often somewhat oblique with one nearly straight and one curved lateral side, narrowed and subtruncate at one or both ends, 16-25 mm long and 4-7 mm wide; wing oblong to elliptic, pellucid, pale brown, 2-3 cm long and 7-14 mm wide.