Gomphogyne Griff.

Delicate or slender herbaceous climbers, 0.5-5 m long, annual or biennial, dioecious; roots fibrous, without tuberous rootstock. Probract absent. Tendrils 2-branched at apex. Leaves: blade pedately foliolate (or simple, not in Malesia), ovate or subcircular in outline, membranous, leaflets up to 9, petiolulate, lateral ones usually smaller, elliptic or narrowly elliptic, base acute, margin finely or coarsely serrate-dentate, teeth mucronulate, apex acute or acute-acuminate; cystoliths absent or inconspicuous. Flowers white, small; sepals and petals free. Male inflorescences usually lateral, few-or many-flowered, paniculate with ultimate branches fine, raceme-like; minute linear bracts and lower portion of pedicels persistent. Female inflorescences few-branched or unbranched, with 1-3 flowers on a slender peduncle; pedicel slender, usually with 1 or 2 small, simple and subopposite tendrils close to the flower. Male flowers: pedicel articulate at or below halfway; buds with subacute apex; corolla rotate; receptacle narrow, flat or shallow; petals imbricate in bud; stamens 5, inserted in or near the centre of the receptacle, subpatent, anthers small, 1-theous, opening extrorse; disc inconspicuous or absent. Female flowers: ovary cylindrical-clavate, 1-or 3-locular, ovules 1 to several per placenta, pendulous, styles 3, free, stigma 2-lobed; staminodes absent. Fruit few or solitary, ripening green, small or medium-sized, capsular, cylindrical-clavate, longitudinally striate or ribbed, or irregular-veined, apex truncate, 3-valvate, with three horn-like processes partly formed by the styles at the angles. Seeds up to 12, imbricately arranged in 3 rows, (narrowly) elliptic in outline, compressed, tubercled or scrobiculate, not winged or the margin with a membranous or corky wing either only at the end(s) or all around.