Woody climbers, occasionally suberect shrubs, to 3 m tall, deciduous. Young branches green, with dense brownish hairs; old branches purple-brown, glabrous, waxy, armed with short spines 4-6 mm, spines at apices shallowly bifurcate; bud scales glabrous, ciliolate. Petiole 0.5-1 cm; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially dark green, ovate-elliptic, ovate, or broadly ovate, 3.5-9 × 2-5 cm, papery, glabrous or sparsely pubescent on midvein, lateral veins 3-5 pairs, base acute, cuneate, or rounded, apex acute or acuminate. Pedicel 2-4 mm, 2-2.5 cm at fruiting; bracts 4, 2-4 mm. Flowers appearing before leaves, solitary. Sepals 5, suborbicular or broadly ovate, ca. 0.5 mm, ciliolate or not. Petals 5, light yellowish green, obovate or oblong-ovate, 3-4 mm. Stamens 5; anthers narrowly elliptic, extrorse. Disk cup-shaped, shallowly 5-lobed. Ovary ovoid, pubescent or glabrous. Schizocarp green to red, purple, or bluish black, suborbicular or subreniform, ca. 5 mm in diam.; endocarp with prominent midrib, with foveolate. Fl. Feb-Mar, fr. Apr-Jul.

Dense forests, forest margins, mountains, valleys, roadsides; below 800 m. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Henan, Hubei, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Zhejiang [Japan].