Plants scandent or creeping. Stem and branches angular, white hispid. Tendrils slender, simple. Petiole 10-16(-20) cm; leaf blade broadly ovate-cordate, 7-20 × 7-20 cm, membranous, margin 3-5-angular or -lobed; lobes triangular, dentate, apex acute or acuminate; sinus half-orbicular. Plants monoecious. Male flowers fasciculate; pedicel filiform, 5-15 mm, puberulent; calyx tube narrowly campanulate, 8-10 mm, densely white pubescent; segments subulate; corolla yellow-white, ca. 2 cm; segments oblong-lanceolate, acute; anthers 3-4 mm; connective ca. 1 mm. Female flowers solitary or fascicled; pedicels pubescent, 1-2 cm; ovary fusiform, muricate. Fruit yellow-green, oblong or cylindric, (5-)10-30(-50) cm, muricate, usually verrucose. Seeds white, small, narrowly ovate, 5-10 mm, emarginate, both ends acute. Fl. and fr. summer.

Forests, thickets, mountain slopes; 700-2000 m. Guangxi, Guizhou, Yunnan; also commonly cultivated in China [NE India, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand; cultivated in all tropical and temperate countries].