Stamens 3, with filaments short, broad; anthers extrorse, circular, 1-thecous.
Petals green or white to yellow or orange, 1–1·5 mm. long, obovate to oblong-oblanceolate, rounded, entire, with margins plane, imbricate in bud, spreading or suberect and grouped 2:2:1 over the stamens at anthesis.
Ovary with 3 sessile divergent stigmas, each curved down over a stamen; ovules 2 per loculus.
Disk single, deeply 3-lobed, each almost separate concave lobe enclosing a stamen.
Mericarps green tinged purplish-brown, c. 3 × 1 cm., flattened, narrowly oblong, obtuse to rounded at the apex, 2-seeded, almost smooth.
Flowers ?, scented, in lax or ± dense simple axillary dichasia; peduncles and inflorescence branches quadrangular; buds c. 0·6 mm. long, globose; pedicels 0·2–1 (2·5) mm. long; bracts 0·5–0·8 mm. long, triangular, acute, entire or eroded-denticulate, with fimbriate basal auricles, persistent.
Seeds winged, with veins marginal and submedian.
Sepals greenish, c. 0·5 mm. long, unequal, ovate to oblong, obtuse to rounded, with margin irregularly ciliolate or subentire, free or united in the lower 1/3.
Liane or scandent shrub, to over 5 m. high (over 30 m. in W. Africa), glabrous; sterns greyish-brown, smooth and slightly 4-lined or terete when young, soon becoming terete, without lenticels.
Leaf-lamina ± deep green above, paler below, often ± glaucous, 3·5–9·2 × 1·7–3·6 cm. in our area (to 12 × 6·6 cm. in Cameroun), oblong or elliptic-ovate or obovate, acuminate at the apex, with margin entire (in our area) to undulate or glandular-serrulate, cuneate to truncate and decurrent at the base, thin to subcoriaceous, with midrib and 4–6 lateral nerves plane or slightly prominent on both sides, and reticulate venation often visible below; petiole 5–12(14) mm. long; stipules 0·2–0·5 mm. long, broadly triangular to semi-lunar, fimbriate, not united.
