Key Botanical Characters:

                                           A climber up to 20 m tall. Stems strongly swollen at the nodes, papillose when young, soon entirely glabrous. Leaves of fertile branches with a petiole 1-2 cm long, 1.2-1.8 mm thick when dry, glabrous at maturity; lamina ovate, rounded or shallowly cordate and slightly asymmetrical at the base, rather gradually acuminate at the apex; almost coriaceous, Peduncle as long as or slightly longer than petiole of opposed leaf. Spike 3.5-5 cm long, 3-4 mm thick at anthesis, unevenly nodose in fruit; pendulous, apiculate by the ebracteate sterile tip of the axis. Bracts peltate, orbicular to obcordate, broadly stipitate, with a membranous margin. Flowers crowded, dioecious. Stamens 2. Stylules 5-6, sometimes up to 8, about 0.8 mm across. Berries very rarely produced, concrescent into a fleshy spadix.