Climbing plant, lianescent, deciduous, hermaphrodite or dioecious, stems woody, sarmentose, which can reach up to 30 m long \u2014climbing between trees, walls or rocks\u2014. Trunk sometimes well defined, very tortuous, with greyish-brown or brown-black bark, highly fissured, which peels into longitudinal strips. Branches sarmentose, flexible, with thick nodes and internodes with papery bark, smooth and grey on young branches, fissured in more than one year old branches. Leaves alternate (5-25 \u00d7 5-20 cm), palmate, clearly petiolate and dimorphic: those on male plants with varying lobes (usually 3-7), sometimes very deep, coarsely serrated; those on female plants slightly or not lobed, glabrous and bright green on the upper side of the leaf, lighter and slightly villous on the underside. Tendrils are born opposite the leaves, first herbaceous, later on woody, which the plant uses to climb. Inflorescence paniculiform (a raceme of racemes), pendant, arranged opposite the leaves. Calyx disk-shaped, light green, with 5 very small teeth. Petals 5, light green, very small, fused at the tip, falling together as the flower opens, exposing ovary, style and stamens. Fruit a globose berry 5-7 mm, red-purple to blackish. In cultivated varieties the fruits are larger and colour from green-golden yellow to deep black. Seeds 1-4.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","class_list":["post-12102","species","type-species","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n