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 annual, up to 1 m high, glabrous or pubescent in the young parts. Alternate leaves, oval, acuminate, somewhat dentate, up to 20 cm. Flowers erect, 6 to 10 cm; calyx tubular, almost cylindrical, narrow, 3 to 4 cm, with sharp teeth; white corolla, lobes 5 with filiform appendages. Capsule erect, dehiscent, covered with long, sharp spines; seeds reniform.

Perennial erect herb, 1 to 2 m, forming dense clusters. Leaves up to 1 m long, tapered towards both ends. Inflorescence up to 60 cm; segments of villous racemes; sessile spikelets, without bristles, linear to linear-lanceolate, flat on the back.