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Leaf blades up to 18 × 20 cm (in Flora Zambesiaca area), palmately 5-fid to 5-partite, truncate to shallowly cordate at the base, acutely or obtusely shortly acuminate at lobe apices, entire, membranaceous, dark green and shiny on upper surface, paler and duller beneath; the median lobe up to 13 × 6 cm, oblong-lanceolate to elliptic-lanceolate, the lateral lobes progressively smaller; lobe midribs all arising at the lamina base, lateral nerves in up to c. 15 pairs in the median lobe, fewer in the lateral lobes.
Male flowers: pedicels slender, 1–3 mm long; calyx tube 1.5 mm long; calyx lobes 2 × 1 mm, lanceolate, subacute, entire, terracotta; petals 5 × 2 mm, oblanceolate, rounded, becoming reflexed, glabrous, yellow; disk glands 5, free, minute, erect, turbinate, truncate; stamens 8, the 5 outer 5 mm long and fused for two fifths their length, the 3 inner 6 mm long and fused for two-thirds their length, filaments glabrous, anthers 1 mm long.
Female flowers: pedicels c. 5 mm long, extending a little in fruit; calyx tube c. 2 mm long, lobes 3 × 1.25 mm, and extending a little in fruit, otherwise resembling the male; petals as in the male, but yellow-green; disk 5-lobed, the lobes short, broad and somewhat irregularly lobulate; ovary 2 × 2 mm, 3-lobed to subglobose, smooth, glabrous; styles 1.25 mm long, ± free, erect or spreading, stigmas small, capitate, bifid, smooth.
Inflorescences up to 30 cm long, terminal or subterminal, subcorymbiform; peduncle up to 13 cm long; bracts up to 1.5 cm long, linear-lanceolate, acute, glandular to long-stipitate.
Seeds 9.5 × 5 × 4 mm, somewhat compressed ellipsoid-subcylindric, slightly shiny, olive-brown; caruncle 2 × 3–3.5 mm, hemispherical, 2-lobed, the lobes multifid, greyish-brown.
Shrub, up to 1.5 m high. Leaves widely ovate or oblong, nearly as broad as long, 3-lobed, less often 5-lobed or entire, petioles up to 70 mm long. Flowers greenish cream.
A 1–2-stemmed, sparingly branched, somewhat succulent, glabrous shrub or subshrub up to 2 m tall, with a thickened rootstock.
Fruits c. 12 × 10–12 mm, 3-lobed to subcylindric, shallowly nervose and verruculose, glabrous; columella 7 mm long.
Stipules 4 × 6 mm, flabellately multifid; the segments up to c. 3 mm long, filiform-setaceous, gland-tipped.
Petioles up to 9 cm long.
