Momordica kirkii (Hook.F.) C.Jeffrey

Climbing or trailing herb with perennial tuberous rootstock.. Stems annual, herbaceous, long spreading-hairy.. Leaf-blade broadly ovate-or reniform-cordate in outline, membranous, sparsely pubescent, acute, apiculate, obscurely sinuate-toothed, 16–70 mm. long, 21–75 mm. broad, obscurely 3–5-lobed or angled; petiole 15–85 mm. long, long spreading-hairy.. Tendrils simple.. Monoecious.. Male flowers 1–4, subumbellate, borne in the sinus of foliage leaves at the apex of a peduncle adnate to the subtending petiole, immediately subtended by an ovate-lanceolate acute entire pubescent 5–14 mm. long 1.5–5 mm. broad foliar bract opposing the leaf-blade; pedicels 3–6 mm. long; receptacle-tube broad, shallow, 2.5–3 mm. long; lobes ovate-lanceolate, acute, pubescent, 5–10 mm. long; petals orange, 15–20 mm. long, 7–10 mm. broad, the outer 2 with scales inside at the base; stamens 2 or 3.. Female flowers on 4–16 mm. long free stalks; ovary densely pubescent, slender, beaked, 7–13 mm. long, 1–1.5 mm. across; receptacle-tube shallow; lobes linear-lanceolate, 2.5–3 mm. long; petals obovate-lingulate, 10–11 mm. long, 7–8 mm. broad, rounded-subtruncate and slightly apiculate at the apex.. Fruit on a ± 25 mm. long stalk, fleshy, fusiform and beaked, pubescent, 24–32 mm. long, 4–6 mm. across, 8-ribbed, 1–2-seeded, slightly constricted between the seeds, crowned with the persistent receptacle.. Seeds (fig. 3/7, p. 25) fusiform, 12 × 3.5 × 3.5 mm.; faces rounded, deeply sculptured; margins smooth, broadly and shallowly grooved.