Climbing or scrambling shrub, 2-5 m long with young parts clothed with scarlet-brown rufous tomentum; hairs irregularly branched and soon falling off. Leaves simple, elliptic-oblong, rarely ovate or obovate, 2.5-12 cm long, 2-7 cm broad; petiole up to 1.5 cm long; stipule recurved, c. 4 mm long, yellowish-brown. Flowers supra axillary, 2 or sometimes 1 or 3, 1.5-2.5 cm across, usually in vertical row, the upper most largest and the oldest; pedicels 1.5-3.5 cm long, tomentose. Sepals 8-12 mm long, 5-8 mm broad, subequal, tomentose. Petals 12-18 mm long, 5-12 mm broad hairy on the outer surface. Stamens indefinite, filaments about twice as long as the petals. Gynophore 3-4.5 cm long, thickened in fruit. Fruit more or less globose, 3-4 cm in diameter, pericarp thick and strong; seeds many about 5 mm in diam.

Type: Ceylon, Hermann (BM).

Distribution: India, Ceylon, East Pakistan, eastward to Malesia and Indochina.

It has been casually reported from West Pakistan and does not seem to be wild or naturalized here. I have not seen it myself anywhere in our area and I am quoting others whose specimens, perhaps, have come from cultivated plants.