Climbing plant with thin stems of up to 15 m long; tuberous roots. Alternate leaves, ovate to elliptic, 2 to 8 cm long and 2 to 4 cm wide, acute to acuminate, gradual or abruptly narrow at the base. Minute white aromatic flowers in lax clusters of 6 to 20 cm, slender; white calyx and corolla, ovate petals of 2 to 2.5 mm. Tricarpellar nut-type fruit with a single seed protected by the perianth.

Herbaceous annual up to 60 cm high, covered with numerous thorns; yellow latex. Sessile, alternate, sinuate-pinnatifid leaves 8-20 cm long, short and wide lobes, thorny margins. Solitary terminal hermaphrodite flowers; calyx of 3 spiny sepals; corolla with 6 petals, yellow or white, 2-3 cm. Capsule with 4-6 shells of 4-5 cm, spiny.

Tree up to 10 m tall. Petiolate, coriaceous, oblong-elliptic to rounded-elliptic leaves, rounded at the apex, acute or obtuse at the base. Flowers in terminal panicles, linear-lanceolate purple petals. Reniform, grey nut on a large, thick, somewhat spongy, juicy, red or yellow hypocarp.

Herb of up to 3 m in height, growing in clusters. Narrowly elliptic leaves, up to 70 cm long and 10 cm wide, acuminate apex, cuneate base, glabrous to dense and often pubescent. Inflorescence a raceme or pendulous thyrse, bracts absent; bractlets widely elliptical, white with a red apex; corolla 4 to 5 cm long, almost glabrous, white with red apex, ovate labellum, yellow with red stripes. Globular capsule, 2 cm in diameter.