Coccinia species are dioecious, meaning that individual plants produce flowers with only male or only female organs.

The color of the corolla is creamy white to yellowish orange, rarely also snow-white or pinkish.

Female flowers have an inferior ovary consisting of three carpels and producing a single style.

The seeds are enclosed in a juicy hull (aril), grayish-beige, flat to lentil-shaped.

The tuber of Coccinia abyssinica is cooked and a source of starch for the Oromo people in Ethiopia.

Coccinia grandis is also well known in ayurvedic medicine for diabetes treatment, and modern research seems to confirm that it might be of value in that application.

[citation needed] Media related to Coccinia at Wikimedia Commons