Herbs, climbing; stems slender, angular. Leaves petiolate, pedately 7-9-foliolate; leaflet blade lanceolate or oblong, dentate. Tendrils 2-fid. Plants monoecious. Flowers small, pale green. Male flowers in racemes or panicles; calyx rotate, 5-partite; segments oblong-lanceolate, margins erose; corolla rotate, 5-partite; segments oblong-lanceolate, erose, caudate-acuminate; stamens 5; filaments short, united at base; anthers erect, subglobose, 1-celled, dehiscence longitudinal; rudimentary ovary absent. Female flowers in panicles or fascicled in axils of leaves; calyx and corolla as in male flowers; ovary clavate, 1-locular; styles 3; stigmas 2-lobed; ovules 3, pendulous from apex of locules; staminodes absent. Fruit capsular, turbinate, venose and ribbed, foveolate, truncate at apex, 3-valved, crowned by persistent styles. Seeds 3, black, oblong, testa thick, margin thickened, erose.

Two species: Bhutan, China, India, Nepal; one species in China.

(Authors: Lu Anmin (路安民 Lu An-ming); Charles Jeffrey)