M. Thulin (1999) Vitaceae in Flora of Somalia 2-168.
Plants succulent shrubs, sometimes with few branches; trunks flask-shaped to subspherical, up to 1 m tall; bark yellowish-white to pale brown, flaking off in irregular papery pieces. Leaves congested at the ends of branches, petiolate, fleshy; petioles 1.5-9 cm long; blades with 1-5 leaflets; leaflets narrowly obovate to orbicular, puberulous,1.5-8 cm long, 1-7.5 cm wide, bases attenuate to subcordate, margins denticulate, to coarsely dentate or lobed, sometimes with small, dark marginal tubercles (see image), tips emarginate to broadly rounded. Inflorescences 2-8 cm long, puberulous; peduncles 1-5 cm long. Flowers pedicellate, pedicels 0.5-1 mm long during anthesis, elongate to 4 mm long in fruit; buds 1.5-2 mm long; calyces 1.5-2 mm wide, more or less puberuous; petals yellow to dark-red, about 2 mm long, glabrous. Fruits ellipsoid, pale purple to red, puberulous when young, glabrous later; seeds 5-7, ellipsoid, 2-3.5 mm long, 3-4 mm wide, ventral ridges evident, dorsal surfaces with a median groove having 3-6 tubercles on each side, lateral sides have 1-several more or less prominent lateral ride and more or transverse ridges.
Cyphostemma betiforme grows in acacia-Commiphora bushland on limestone, gypsum, or sand from sea-level to 900 m. It is known from regions N1-3, C2, and S1 of the Flora of Somalia and SE Ethiopia and NE Kenya.