Woody vines; branches often pendulous. Leaf blade not peltate to conspicuously peltate, leathery, palmately veined. Inflorescences superaxillary umbel-like cymes on leafy shoots or panicles on old leafless stems. Male flowers: sepals 6 in 2 whorls, with black stripes when dry, outer sepals usually narrower than inner; petals 6, with sides folded inward around opposite filament; stamens 6, free, filaments swollen in upper half, anthers subglobose, dehiscing transversely. Female flowers: sepals and petals as in male flowers, petals usually 2-lobed at apex; staminodes 6, anthers very small; carpels 3, styles short, stigmas recurved, flattened with margins dentate. Drupes obovate or narrowly obovate and curved, style scar near base; endocarp bony, narrow at base, curved, abaxially ornamented with many transverse ridges on both surfaces; condyle septiform. Seed horseshoe-shaped; embryo narrow; radicle much shorter than foliaceous cotyledons; endosperm scanty.

Two species: tropical Asia; two species (one endemic) in China.