Climber to 12 m long, grey-brown short-hairy, mostly glabrescent, leafy stem 1.5-3 mm diam.; dioecious or monoecious. Probract absent. Tendrils unbranched or 2-or 3-branched. Leaves: petiole 1-3 cm long; blade green on drying, membranous, thinly chartaceous or (sub)coriaceous, simple, unlobed or 3-5-lobed to 1/2 deep, in outline ovate-oblong, 4-21 by 2.5-9 cm, not or faintly scabrous above and beneath, glands few to many, scattered, 0.5 mm diam., cystoliths sometimes on veins beneath, margin entire or irregularly coarsely sinuate, rarely ± dentate, apex rarely obtuse, often with a short mucro; veins 3-5, curved, veinlets raised beneath. Male raceme grey-rusty pubescent, sometimes mixed with a few female flowers towards the base; peduncle 0.5-3 cm long, c. 1 mm thick; rachis not thickened, 3.5-12.5 cm long, 3-25-flowered; bracts subpersistent or caducous, on the rachis or to 5 mm shifted upwards on the pedicel, elliptic, 2-3 by 0.5-2 mm, entire, with minute glands. Male flowers: pedicel 3-10 mm long, persistent; receptacle-tube 15-20 mm long, at throat 3-4 mm wide; sepals narrowly triangular or linear, c. 2 mm long, 1-2 mm wide at base, entire; petals narrowly elliptic, c. 10 mm long, threads c. 10 mm long; synandrium c. 3 mm long, filaments glabrous, 1.5 mm long. Female flowers: pedicel 10-20 mm long (when solitary at the node), 5-10 mm long (when mixed in male raceme); ovary hairy, oblong-fusiform, c. 10 mm long, stigma 4-or 5-lobed (always?). Fruit ripening orange-red, paler striped, ovoid-ellipsoid or (narrowly) ellipoid, 2-10 by 2-6.5 cm, apex subacute and shortly beaked; exocarp leathery or papery, 0.5-1 mm thick; pericarp ± carnose, when dry 5 mm thick; pulp orange-red, conspicuously fibrous; fruiting pedicel 2-3 cm long (at the nodes), 0.5-2 cm long (in the raceme), c. 2 mm thick. Seeds dark brown, tumid, with two lateral inflated parts, 6-10 by 7-12 by 2-3 mm, edge entire.
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