A perennial climbing vine, herbaceous initially but becoming woody with age, with green to red stems covered in tiny hairs, having hairy coiling tendrils, and growing to 10' long (1, 3.) The flowers are 2" wide, with ten white tepals (five sepals appearing to be petals alternating with five petals), the sepals opening first (see picture) (2.) Above the tepals are numerous fleshy filaments, showing colored bands of pale blue or purple, white, and purple from outside in, topped by five pale yellow stamens beneath three white stigma (1, 3.) The aromatic flowers open late afternoon for the night, and close after pollination (3,) but remain open the next morning if not pollinated. The fruit are round to oval, 1" in diameter, poisonous when green, becoming yellow to red and falling off the vine when ripe, containing a small amount of edible gelatinous pulp with black seeds (2.) The flowers and fruit are surrounded with filamentous, finely divided, green to red bracts with glands producing a sticky fluid which contains digestive enzymes. The bracts could be evolving to insect carnivory like the sundew (2.) The leaves are green, hairy, with irregularly saw-toothed margins, deeply lobed palmate, with most commonly 3 to 5 lobes but sometimes 7, the middle lobe wider at top and thinner at the base, and foul smelling if bruised (3.) All parts of the plant are poisonous, containing cyanide, except ripe fruit.
