Climbing, scrambling, or creeping shrubs. Stems up to 25 m long, woody, thick, bark dark-brown to black, densely hairy to almost glabrous, prickles few to many, short, straight. Leaves ovate, entire or shallowly lobed, 7.5-15 by 5-9.5 cm, base deeply cordate to truncate (in smaller leaves), margins serrate to dentate, apex acute, firmly herbaceous, nervation pedate with 8-11 pairs of nerves, venation transverse, densely hairy on nerves and veins to almost glabrous above, with a dense mat of short, curly hairs below, especially on nerves and veins covered by longer, semi-appressed hairs, distinctly two-coloured in living as well as in dried state. Petiole 2.5-5.5 cm long. Stipules early deciduous, suborbicular to elliptic in outline, 6-9 by 6-10 mm, pinnatipar-tite with 5-9 pairs of lobes, hairy outside. Inflorescence a compound raceme, 12-35 cm long, with 6-18 side branches, the lower ones in axils of leaves, up to 10 cm long, laterals usually branched again, with up to 25 flowers. Bracts lobed. Pedicels up to 3 mm long, densely to slightly hairy as are all axes, with 2 bracteoles halfway. Flowers unisexual, plants dioecious, flower buds globular. Hypanthium cup-to saucer-shaped, 3.5-5 mm across, densely tomentellous and with longer, appressed hairs outside. Sepals triangular to (broadly) ovate, 3-6 by 2.2-3.5 mm, apex acute or rounded and shortly apiculate, margins entire, red to purple as are hypanthium, pedicels, and bracts, indumentum outside as hypanthium. Petals obcor date to obovate, 5-11 by 4-6 mm, apex rounded or emarginate, white to pink. Stamens 80-125, glabrous, filaments 2-2.5 mm, anthers 0.8-1.2 mm long, staminodes 60-90, minute. Pistils 45-70, ovaries glabrous, on elevated, hairy torus, style c. 2 mm long, pistillodes c. 1 mm. Collective fruits globose, 6-10 mm diam when dry, sepals closing after anthesis, spreading under ripe fruit. Fruits sickle-shaped, 2-3.5 mm long, black when ripe, mesocarp a rather thin layer when dry.
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