Underground a short rhizome. Stem tough, unarmed, twining to the left, with loosely paniculate flowering branches. Leaves entire, cordate at their largest, but distally gradually losing their auricles until the base of the lamina is obtuse or even acute, herbaceous, drying, as does the whole plant, a dark brownish purple. Flowers hermaphrodite; torus developed into a perianthoid urceolate chamber which encloses entirely the sexual organs and carries marginally the 6 tepals. Stamens 6, inserted just within the mouth of the chamber by rather stout, flattened, deflexed filaments which bring the anthers parallel to the chamberwall with their introrse anther-cells dehiscing towards the wall; beyond the anther-cells the connective is prolonged as a slender process which reaching the apex of the columnar style may adhere there and seems usually to do so, but the manner is not yet known.1 Style rising into the perianthoid chamber from the base, columnar, ending in three bifid stigmas. Ovary widening upwards to make the floor of the chamber, 3-locular with numerous ovules. Fruit a triangular capsule, dehiscent along its whole length at the angles. Seeds developing a wing forwards and outwards, the body of the seed flat, triangular, and widened from its insertion to its wing.
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