Herbaceous tuberous twiner twining to left, scandent & trailing, reddish-hairy stems armed with more or less twisted blunt spines, 0.6mm flowers in axillary panicles to 600mm long, male floral bracts to 1.5mm, female flowers in spikes to 250mm long to 30 per spike, petals to 1.5mm long, & densely red-pubescent or glabrescent brown seed capsule to 50mm x 12mm with 13mm wide wings, leaves 3-10 foliolate to 180mm x 70mm, glabrescent above, rufous-pubescent becoming glabescent beneath