Momordica foetida Schumach.

Perennial herb with woody rootstock.. Stems trailing or climbing to 4.5 m., herbaceous and flecked with darker green when young, glabrous to rather densely white-tomentose, when old becoming rather woody and rooting at the nodes.. Leaf-blade broadly ovate-cordate to triangular-cordate in outline, narrowly decurrent on to the petiole, apiculate, subentire with minute apiculate teeth to distinctly sinuate-dentate, subglabrous above, subglabrous to grey-tomentose beneath especially on the nerves, 13–160 mm. long, 13–170 mm. broad, unlobed, membranous, strongly foetid when crushed; petioles pubescent, 13–170 mm. long.. Tendrils simple or bifid.. Dioecious.. Male flowers 1–9 (only 1 opening at a time) fasciculate at the apex of a 20–230 mm. long peduncle and immediately subtended by an elliptic, obovate-spathulate or broadly ovate-cordate 3–22 mm. long 1–26 mm. broad bract ± enclosing the buds when large; pedicels glabrous to densely tomentose, 4–55 mm. long; receptacle-tube broadly obconic, 2–5 mm. long; lobes ovate or triangular, obtuse or rounded at the apex, convex and often with a few short soft spines in the lower part outside, shortly ciliate near the apex, brown to purplish-black with green margins, 5–9 mm. long; petals caducous, white, cream, yellow or orange, marked with dark green or brown or black at the base, obovate, 17–35 mm. long, 9–27 mm. broad, 3 with orange incurved scales inside at the base; stamens 3; thecae triplicate; anthers coherent in centre of flower.. Female flowers (fig. 2/7, p. 18) on 14–130 mm. long stalks usually bracteate in the lower half; bract 4–16 mm. long; ovary ovoid and beaked, densely and softly papillose-spinose, 10–26 mm. long, 4–11 mm. broad; receptacle-tube broad and shallow, 2–2.5 mm. long; lobes triangular to strap-shaped, acute, obtuse, rounded or somewhat dilated and green at the apex, black at the base, 6–11 mm. long; petals similar to those of ♂ flower, 20–35 mm. long, 18–24 mm. broad, 3 with scales inside at the base; staminodes 3.. Fruit long-stalked, fleshy, ellipsoid, orange and dehiscing into 3 valves, 35–68 mm. long, 30–50 mm. broad, densely and softly spiny; spines fleshy, pointed, somewhat recurved, 7–13 mm. long, without an apical bristle; pulp scarlet, surrounding the exposed seeds at maturity with a sticky bright-red, sheath.. Seeds brown, oblong, ± 10 × 6 × 3 mm.; testa sculptured, 2-grooved at the margins; cotyledons hypogaeous.

Open clearings in the forest zone, abandoned farmland, roadsides. Forest edges and clearings; margins of swamp and riverine forest and at edges of thickets; also a weed in farmland and a colonizer of disturbed ground, up to 2,400 metres.

The young leaves are cooked and eaten. They are bitter. They are often cooked with pumpkin leaves. They are also added to maize porridge. The pulp of the fruit is eaten. The aril or fleshy layer around the seeds is eaten.

Plants can be grown from seeds.