HABIT: A straggling scandent twiner, young parts full of long weak hairs (villous) branches marked with grooves or ridges.
LEAVES : Ovate-oblong, hastate, obtuse or subacute with a sharp short point, subcordate at a base, with soft hairs on both sides, petioles densely hairy.
INFLORASCENCE : Small axillary cymose panicles.
FLOWERS: MALE flowers appear first in small axillary cymose panicles, pedicels slender, bracts minute, hairy. Sepals 6 in 2 series; oblong-ovate, the 3 inner larger. Petals 6, shorter than the sepals, embracing the stamens, thinly membranous, auricled.Stamens 6 embraced by the petals, anthers subglobose, bursting transversely. Gynoecium- Ab.
FEMALE flowers appear late in axillary clusters of 2-3 together. Petals larger than the male flowers, thick and fleshy, divided at the apex into two triangular lobes with swollen bases, claw hairy. Ovaries 3, smooth, stigma tapering, thick and reflexed.
FRUITS : A drupe, size of a small pea, keeled and transversely wrinkled. Seeds horse-shoe shaped.
FLOWERING & FRUITING: Sep. to Dec.
USES ⚠️: Leaves and roots used to allay irritation, fever and rheumatism. The juice of leaves taken internally as cure for gonorrhoea. The juice of the ripe fruit yields a permanent bluish-purple ink and the roots as well as the leaves are used in native medicine and as a tonic like the last species.
