Botany
Coarse and dioecious vine reaching a length of 15 meters, slightly hairy or nearly smooth, climbing by tendrils. Leaves are broadly ovate, 8 to 128 cm long, deeply palmately 3-lobed, sometimes entire, with pointed tips and heart-shaped bases. Male flowers occur cingly in the leaf axils on peduncles 5-15 cm long. Buds, enclosed by a large, green inflated bracteole open at full bloom. Peduncles of the female flowers are 2.5 to 5 cm long. Calyx is nearly black with 5 acuminate lobes. Petas are pale yellow, oblong to oblong-ovate, with a large dark blotch at the base. The fruit is large, ovoid to rounded, 8-12 cm in diameter, yellow with scattered, tubercle-like spines. Seeds are large, flattened, circular, embedded in an orange-yello pulp.

Distribution
In thickets and secondary forests, at low and medium altitudes.

Chemical constituents and characteristics
Seeds contain no alkaloid.
Kernels contain 47 % oil (similar to Chinese tung oil - Aleurites cordata).
Seeds contain a slightly bitter glucoside.

Properties
Pectoral, aperient, abstergent, constructive and resolvent.

Parts used and preparation
Roots, seeds, leaves.

Uses:
Nutritional
Fruit of pulp is edible
Folkloric
Roots are used as soap substitute and for treatment of head lice.
Seeds, pulverized or decocted, are pectoral; also good for coughs.
Plaster made from roots promote hair growth.
Seeds and leaves are aperient and abstergent.
Seeds are used for treatment of hemorrhoids.
Used for swelling of the neck, mammary abscesses, bruises, wounds, swellings and ulcers.
Others
Roots used as a substitute for soap; for lice infestation.
In China, the fruits is used for food coloring.


Availability
Wild-crafted.