Herbs or shrubs, climbing. Leaves simple or often 3-5-foliolate, leaflets sometimes 2-glandular at base. Tendrils simple or 2-fid. Plants dioecious. Male flowers in paniculate or racemose inflorescences in axils of leaves; peduncle and pedicels filiform; calyx tube cupular, 5-partite; segments oblong or oblong-lanceolate; corolla rotate, 5-partite; segments oblong; stamens 5, free; filaments short, united at base; anthers oblong, 1-celled. Female flowers in lax axillary panicles or racemes; ovary 1-locular or imperfectly 3-locular; ovules numerous, pendulous; styles 3, rarely 4; stigma semilunar. Fruit clavate or cylindric, terete or slightly 3-angled, apex broadly truncate and 3-valved. Seeds imbricate, compressed, terminated by a very thin elongated wing, margins wavy-tuberculate, testa crustaceous.

Eleven species: India to Polynesia and Australia; one species in China.

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