A climbing plant, with a perennial root. The leaves are alternate and large; the younger ones thin, pellucid, bright-green, generally 3-lobed, and upward gradually more numerous; the older ones remote, a span in breadth, nearly orbicular, deeply cordate, 5 to 7-lobed, the lobes entire, often deflexed, wavy on the surface and margin, dark-green above, paler beneath; hairy on both sides; the nerves, according to the number of lobes, are 3, 7, or 9, pale, connected by veins which, in themselves, are reticulated and are prominent beneath. The petioles are about as long as the leaves, rounded, glanduloso-pilose, and thickened below. The flowers are small, indistinct, arranged in the male plant in solitary, axillary, drooping, compound racemes, covered with glandular hairs, and with small, caducous bracts at the base; in the female they are also axillary, solitary, simple, spreading, but shorter than those of the male. Sepals 6, glabrous; petals 6, in a single row; stamens 6; anthers terminal and 4-celled. The fruit is drupaceous, or berried, about the size of a hazel-nut, densely clothed with long, spreading hairs, and tipped with a black, oblong gland. The seeds are black, striated transversely, and subreniform. |
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