Perennial (annual in cultivated), wild herb with trailing or climbing, thick, angular, hardly scabrous stems; young shoots villous, woolly at their tips; tendrils bifid, stout, pubescent; leaves triangular-ovate, base cordate, lobes deeply pinnatifid, terminal lobes larger, acute, laterals somewhat rounded, glabrous or slightly hairy; flowers large, yellow, actinomorphic, monoecious; in male flowers calyx campanulate, lobes-5, narrowly lanceolate, equaling the tube; corolla yellow within greenish outside, villous, lobes-5, ovate-oblong, obtuse; stamens-3, short, anthers scarcely cohering, cells conduplicate, connective not produced; female flowers densely hairy; calyx-corolla like males; ovary ovoid, densely pubescent, style short, stigmas-3; fruit indehiscent, large, oblong or cylindric, covered with stiff, caduceus hairs, afterwards become smooth, fleshy, green; seeds many, usually margined, black.