Rhizomes are thick, cylindrical and yellow. Stems are much branched, hairless, tendrils axillary, slender, with 2-5 cracks at the top.
Leaves alternate, nearly round or heart-shaped, with a length and width of about 7-20 cm, usually 5-7 palmately shallow or middle-split, rarely deeply split, or undivided but with coarse teeth of different sizes. Lobes are oblong or oblong, elliptic to ovate-lanceolate, with sparse short hairs or hairless surfaces, acute or short acuminate tips, and sparse teeth or notched edges.
Dioecious, several male flowers are born in racemes on the upper part of the total pedicel with a length of10-20 cm, few are solitary, the bracts are obovate or broadly ovoid, with a length of1.5-2 cm, the edge is toothed, and the receptacle is tubular and about 3.5 cm long; Calyx lobes lanceolate, entire, ca. 15 mm long, corolla lobes obovate, apex threadlike, stamens 3, filaments short, hairy, anthers connivent; Female flowers are solitary, ovary ovate, style 3-lobed.
The fruit is nearly spherical, orange-red and smooth when ripe; Seeds numerous, flat.
Extended data:
There are many kinds of hanging melons, which can be divided into two categories according to their use value, namely edible hanging melons and medicinal hanging melons.
Edible hanging melon: mainly take its mature seeds, mainly fried food, its seeds are full, fleshy, rich in fat and protein, which is a good product among edible melon seeds and has health care function;
Medicinal hanging melon: Take its mature seeds, which can also be used as fried food, but the quality is worse. Mainly take its grown fresh fruit and bake it to make it into Chinese medicine raw materials. It is often used to treat phlegm-heat cough, chest distress and pain, angina pectoris and other diseases. Its root is made into Chinese medicine "Trichosanthes root", which is a Chinese medicine for inducing labor in gynecology and can also be used to treat hepatitis, diabetes and other diseases.
References:
Baidu Encyclopedia-Guagua