A tuberous, slender annual vine with glabrous stems and forked tendrils. Leaves ovate-suborbicular in outline, 7.5 to 15 cm long and up to 12 cm wide, deeply 3 to 5 lobed, base cordate, blade membranous, scabrid above with minute red scales, smooth or slightly scabrid beneath; lobes lanceolate, acute to acuminate, margins coarsely, irregularly serrate or sinuate and distantly denticulate. Flowers small, greenish-yellow, the female flowers borne in fascicles, the male solitary; corolla 3 to 4 mm, lobes ovate-oblong, acute, pubescent. Fruit (berry) rounded, 2 to 3 cm in diameter, bluish-green with eight vertical white streaks, ripening red; seeds few, brown, obovate, compressed, 4 mm long and 3 mm wide, encircled by a prominent raised band.

The plant is bitter, aperient and tonic, and alleviates spasms (50% EtOH aerial part extract); fruit is used as an aphrodisiac and tonic.