Vines, woody, glabrous (except Kadsura induta), dioecious or monoecious. Leaf blade elliptic, ovate, or obovate, papery to leathery, base cuneate (especially when young), broadly cuneate, truncate, or subcordate, margin denticulate to entire, apex acute to acuminate. Flowers unisexual, in axils of leaves or fugacious bracts or occasionally cauliflorous, generally solitary or sometimes in clusters of 2-4. Tepals 7-24. Staminate flowers: stamens 13-80, ± distinct but basally connate or sometimes tightly aggregated into a subglobose mass; pollen 6-colpate, distally syncolpate. Pistillate flowers: carpels 17 to ca. 300, distinct; stigmatic crest forming subulate or laterally flattened "pseudostyle" or modified as subpeltate or irregular "pseudostigma"; ovary with 1-5(-11) pendulous or ventrally attached ovules. Fruit aggregates of apocarps; receptacle ellipsoid or clavate; apocarps ripening red or yellow, subglobose, obovoid, or elongate-obovoid. Seeds 1-5(-11) per apocarp, smooth.

Sixteen species: mainly in E and SE Asia; eight species (four endemic) in China.