Perennial trailing herbs with somewhat woody tuberous root. Stems shortly hairy when young becoming scabrid. Tendrils simple, rarely bifid, slender, glabrous. Leaf blade ± elongate-ovate in outline, 10-60 (-110) mm long, 8-55 (-66) mm broad, distinctly scabrid-hairy beneath, smooth except on the nerves above, palmately deeply 3-5-lobed, ultimate lobes pinnately lobulate with central lobe longest, long-ovate in outline; petiolate, petiole rather densely rough-hairy; probracts lanceolate-elliptic, 4-5 mm long and c. l. 5 mm broad, caducous. Male flowers on long pedicels; calyx campanulate, c. 9 (4-8) mm long, lobes c. 5 mm broad; corolla pale yellow, ovate-acute, c. 8 mm long and c. 5 mm broad; female flowers on longer pedicels than male, receptacle-tube short, lobes lanceolate, c. 5 mm long. Ovary hairy, subglobose or obovate. Fruit on long stalk, c. 5 cm in diameter, globose, smooth, longitudinally green striped, 5-7 cm in diameter, eipcarp thin, filled with a dry spongy very bitter pulp. Seeds numerous, ovate-oblong, yellowish brown, not margined, c. 6 mm long and c. 3 mm broad.

Fl. Per.: Jan.-April.

Type: From a plant cultivated at Uppsala, Sweden (LINN, Lecto).

Distribution: Northern Tropical Africa, Atlantic Islands, North-West India, Pakistan and Australia.