Annual herb ranging from erect to creeping habit.  Leaves opposite, rough on both surfaces, sessile, elliptic-lanceolate, 8 cm x 2 cm, margin serrulate. Inflorescences axillary on long stalks; flower-heads 1 cm across, florets white; achenes black, wrinkled, without pappus appendages.

Herbaceous, dioecious, climber with glabrous stem, bearing in leaf axils, large, brown, tuberculate bulbils ca 15 cm in diameter; leaves alternate, simple, cordate at base, petioles 6-14 cm long, blades broadly ovate 15-25 cm x 7-20 cm; male flowers borne on clustered spikes up to 20 cm long; female flowers borne on simple spikes 10-15 cm long; fruit a capsule oblong 2.5 cm x1.5 cm.

Herbaceous acaulescent, from 60 to 90 cm. Thick, cylindrical or ellipsoid tubers, yellow inside. Oblong or elliptical leaves, 30 to 50 cm, acuminate. Cylindrical spikes of 10 to 20 cm on a 12 cm scape; pale green bracts, the upper ones pink; pale yellow flowers.

Small tree, up to 8 m tall with shorttrunk up to 20 cm in diameter with long spreading branches; leaves short-petiolate, spatulate, fasciculate, 5-20 cm long; flowers bell-shaped, born on the trunk in clusters, 5-6 cm long, greenish- white to greenish-yellowish with purple markings, foul smelling; fruit globose to ellipsoid, smooth, shiny, 10-30 cm in diameter, with hard shell.