Stephania japonica, known in Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 as the Snake Vine is a common scrambler, often seen in sheltered areas near the sea.

A widespread vine seen as far south as Eden, New South Wales

Eden, New South Wales

Eden is a coastal town in the South Coast region of New South Wales, Australia. The town, south of the state capital Sydney near the border with Victoria, is located between Nullica Bay to the south and Calle Calle Bay, the northern reach of Twofold Bay, and built on undulating land adjacent to a...

, north through Queensland

Queensland

Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...

. Also seen in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

, India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

 and many other areas of south-east Asia and the Pacific region. The original specimen was collected in Japan, hence the specific epithet “japonica”. A feature of this plant is the peltate leaves, (the stem is attached to the leaf, away from the leaf edge).

The variety in New South Wales is known as bicolor, as the under-side of the leaf is somewhat paler than above.

A dioecious

Dioecious

Dioecy is the property of a group of biological organisms that have males and females, but not members that have organs of both sexes at the same time. I.e., those whose individual members can usually produce only one type of gamete; each individual organism is thus distinctly female or male...

 vine without prickles. Greenish small flowers form on compound umbel

Umbel

An umbel is an inflorescence which consists of a number of short flower stalks which are equal in length and spread from a common point, somewhat like umbrella ribs....

s, growing from the leaf axils in the warmer months. Inflorescence

Inflorescence

An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...

s are 4 to 8 cm long. The fruit is an oval shaped, orange or red drupe

Drupe

In botany, a drupe is a fruit in which an outer fleshy part surrounds a shell of hardened endocarp with a seed inside. These fruits develop from a single carpel, and mostly from flowers with superior ovaries...

, 2 to 5 mm long.