Annual or rarely perennial herbaceous tendril climber. Stem and branches softly hispid. Leaves with 2-4 cm long, hispid, glandless petiole; lamina membranous, broad ovate, cordate or subcordate, 4-7 cm long, 3-5 cm broad, shallowly 3-lobed, lobes acute, with ciliate margins; stipules falcate, tripinnatisect, with gland tipped segments. Flowers solitary axillary, on up to 4 cm long peduncle, large with obnoxious odour, 4-6 cm across; bracts deeply tripinnatisect, segments filiform, gland tipped; hypanthium urceolate. Sepals 5, oblong, 2-2.5 cm long, white within, pale green without. Petals 5, oblong, as long as sepals, obtuse, mucronate, white. Corona multiseriate, purple to bluish purple. Stamens 5; anthers greenish yellow, c. 5 mm long. Ovary globose, somewhat pilose; styles clavate. Fruit ovoid-globose, c. 2 cm in diameter, orange yellow, glabrescent, enclosed by enlarged bracts.

Fl.Per.: July-August.

Type: Herb.Linn.1070/20 (LINN).

Distribution: A native of tropical and South America, now naturalized in Tropical Africa, Pakistan, India, Ceylon, South-East Asia and China.