Plants perennial, dioecious, trailing and climbing, <often fetid>; stems <annual or perennial>, glabrous [scabridulous]; roots tuberous; tendrils unbranched. Leaves: blade ovate to suborbiculate, broadly ovate, or reniform, usually palmately 5-lobed or pedately 3-lobed, rarely unlobed, lobes narrowly oblong to linear or cuneate to flabellate or rhombic-ovate, margins lobulate or coarsely toothed [denticulate], surfaces eglandular. Inflorescences: staminate flowers solitary or 4–12(–24) in axillary racemes, racemoid panicles, or corymboid clusters, rarely solitary; pistillate flowers solitary; bracts absent. Flowers: hypanthium narrowly campanulate to cylindric [obtriangular]; sepals 5, broadly deltate to triangular; petals 5, distinct, greenish yellow to yellow, [whitish], narrowly oblong to linear-oblong, clawed, 3–7 mm, <apex shallowly 2-lobed, infolded in bud>, densely glandular-pubescent adaxially, corolla salverform. Staminate flowers: stamens 3; filaments inserted near hypanthium rim, distinct, nearly vestigial; thecae distinct [weakly connate in I. fusiformis and I. guatemalensis], linear-oblong, without terminal appendage, connective narrow; pistillodes absent. Pistillate flowers: ovary 3(–5)-locular, ellipsoid to fusiform; ovules 2–35 per locule; style 1, narrowly columnar; stigmas 3, coiled; staminodes absent or present. Fruits berrylike, dark orange to red, globose to ellipsoid, smooth, <glabrous>, irregularly dehiscent. Seeds (2–)6–18[–100], irregularly ovoid, compressed, red-arillate, margins prominent, raised, surface corky-pleated [smooth]. x = 12.
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