Trichosanthes hastata Cogn. ex Harms

Climber, 5-10 m long, late glabrescent or with (sparse) rigid pale hairs, leafy stem 1-4 mm diam.; dioecious. Probract (sometimes caducous), ovate or narrowly elliptic, 3-7 by 1-5 mm, glands absent. Tendrils unbranched or 2-branched. Leaves: petiole 2-6 cm long, hairy; blade greenish on drying, chartaceous, simple, unlobed, in outline (narrowly) ovate or sagittate, 6-18 by 4-14 cm, scabrous and sometimes finely bullate above, glabrous beneath, glands few, c. 0.5 mm diam. or absent, cystoliths usually obvious, margin remotely (minutely) dentate; veins 3-5 from the base, curved, also a few pinnate ones. Male raceme thinly hairy, flowers solitary at the node, or in the raceme and often with a solitary flower at base, its pedicel often later on showing as a persistent straw-like appendage; peduncle 1-5 cm long, 1-2 mm thick; rachis not thickened, 4-10(-15) cm long, 5-15-flowered; bracts (narrowly) obovate or (narrowly) rhomboid, 8-20 by 6-15 mm, margin sharply dentate to 1/3 deep (or entire), glands absent or few, 0.5 mm diameter. Male flowers: pedicel 2-5 mm long, caducous, in solitary flowers 10-30 mm long, subpersistent; receptacle-tube 25-45 mm long, at throat 5-10 mm wide; sepals long-triangular or narrowly elliptic, 6-10 mm long, 1-2 mm wide at base, entire or incised, or usually slenderly lobed or dentate, lobes 1-2 mm long; petals obovate-rhomboid, 15-25 by 10-25 mm, threads 10-20 mm long; synandrium 5-7 mm long, filaments glabrous, 2-3 mm long. Female flowers: pedicel 15-25 mm long; ovary (sub)glabrous, (narrowly) ellipsoid, 15-25 by 3-6 mm. Fruit ripening evenly orange-red, but greenish at apex, (narrowly) ovoid, c. 7.5 by 4.5 cm, apex subacute; exocarp thin, woody, smooth; dry pericarp not seen; pulp red; fruiting pedicel 1.5-2.5 cm long, 2-3 mm thick. Seeds brown, compressed, ± parallel-sided, 8-10 by 5-7 by 1-2 mm, base subacute or narrowly notched, apex broadly notched, margin broad but faint, edge ± grooved, coarsely crenulate.

It is a tropical plant.