Climber, 10-20 m long, glabrous (minute powdery hairs on growing shoots excepted), leafy stem 3-6 mm diam.; monoecious. Probract obovate or narrowly elliptic, 10-15 by 5-8 mm. Tendrils 2-or 3-branched. Leaves: petiole 3-10 cm long; blade reddish brown on drying, membranous or chartaceous, simple, deeply 3-5-lobed, in outline subcircular, 8-18 by 7-18 cm, ± scabrous, glands few or several, towards the insertion of the petiole and sometimes scattered, 0.5-1 mm diam., cystoliths present, margin (minutely) serrate-dentate, more coarsely so towards the base; veins 5(-7), straight. Male raceme thinly minutely brown hairy, glabrescent; peduncle 6-11 cm long, 2-4 mm thick; rachis not thickened, 4-10 cm long, up to 20-flowered; bracts persistent, broadly ovate-rhomboid, 30-45 by 15-20 mm, margin finely dentate or incised 2-5(-10) mm deep, glands absent. Male flowers: pedicel 5(-10) mm long, caducous; receptacle-tube c. 50 mm long, at throat 8 mm wide; sepals narrowly elliptic, 12-15 mm long, 3-4 mm wide at base, margin dentate, rarely entire; petals obovate-rhomboid, c. 10 mm long, papillose hairy, threads short; synandrium c. 10 mm long, filaments c. 2 mm long, glabrous. Female flowers (from bud): solitary or 1 or 2 at base in male raceme, with smaller bract; pedicel 5-10 mm long; ovary glabrous, (narrowly) ellipsoid, c. 10 by 3 mm. Fruit ripening orange, with or without whitish greenish stripes, subglobose, 6.5-8 by 5-7.5 cm, apex c. 2 mm beaked; exocarp leathery, smooth; pericarp firm-carnose, dry pericarp 10-18 mm thick; pulp greenish black, bitter; fruiting pedicel in the raceme 0.5-1.5 cm long, when solitary on the node c. 2 cm long, c. 4 mm thick. Seeds dark brown, ± compressed, (narrowly) elliptic, base and apex broadly rounded, 15-18 by 8-10 by 3-4 mm, margin absent, edge entire.