Climber or creeper, sometimes rooting at the nodes, to 10 m long, brown hairy, late glabrescent, leafy stem 3-5 mm diam.; dioecious. Probract sometimes caducous, (narrowly) elliptic, 5-15 by 1-8 mm, apex subacute, with many glands. Tendrils 2-4-branched. Leaves: petiole 3-9 cm long; blade brown-green or blackish brown on drying, (thinly) chartaceous-coriaceous, simple, shallowly or deeply 3-5-lobed or-angular, lobes to 1/2-5/6 deep, rarely unlobed, in outline broadly ovate or circular, 9-25 by 9-23 cm, above and beneath glabrous or (densely) brown hairy, glands few or many, scattered, 0.5-1 mm diam., or absent, cystoliths sometimes obvious on stem and leaves, margin entire, or sparsely minutely spiny-dentate or (coarsely) dentate; veins 3-7, straight. Male raceme occasionally with a solitary male flower at base, dark brown woolly-hairy, hairs dark brown, curly, more than 2 mm long, partly glabrescent; peduncle 4.5-16(-20) cm long; rachis not thickened or thickened in var. septemloba, at base with thickened bract-scars, 5-20(-35) cm long, 2-5(-7) mm thick, (3-)5-30-flowered or more; bracts broadly ovate-rhomboid, 10-40 by (5-)12-25 mm, margin entire or undulate-dentate, with small glands. Male flowers: pedicel 5-10 mm long, in solitary flowers much longer, caducous; receptacle-tube 30(-50) mm long, at throat 7-15 mm wide; sepals narrowly triangular or ovate, acute, 5-15 mm long, 2-5 mm wide at base, entire or incised; petals obovate-rhomboid, c. 20 mm long, threads c. 20 mm long; synandrium c. 10 mm long, filaments glabrous, 1-2 mm long. Female flowers: pedicel 30-50 mm long; ovary (narrowly) ellipsoid, 20-35 by 6-8 mm, densely brown hairy; receptacle-tube 30-50(-60) mm long; sepals 5-10 mm long, 2-5 mm wide at base, incised (or entire); petals as in male; style c. 45 mm long. Fruit ripening evenly orange or red, narrowly ellipsoid or (long) pyriform, 10-25 by 5-7 cm, apex ± acute; pericarp carnose, smooth, dry pericarp woody, rough; pulp red; fruiting pedicel 3-10 cm long, (4-)5-10 mm thick. Seeds densely packed, compressed, narrowly elliptic and ± parallel-sided or obtriangular (broad at apex), 10-15 by 4-8 by 1-2 mm, ± truncate or notched at one or both ends, with or without a longitudinal depression in the middle, margin broad, edge entire or sometimes finely crenulate.
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