Climbing shrubs, large, deciduous. Floral branchlets glabrous, rarely strigose, lenticels very conspicuous; pith brown, lamellate, or sometimes solid; buds densely rusty strigose; two-year-old branches grayish, with rugose striae when dry, lenticels dehiscent or not, pith brown, lamellate. Petiole reddish, 2-8 cm, glabrous, rarely strigose; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially dark green, ovate to broadly ovate to obovate or elliptic, 5-12 × 3.5-8.5 cm, abaxially glabrous except for barbate vein axils, adaxially glabrous or occasionally strigillose, midvein and lateral veins conspicuous abaxially, slightly sulcate adaxially, lateral veins 6-8 pairs, reticulate veins subconspicuous to conspicuous, with slightly raised parallel cross-bars, base broadly cuneate to rounded to truncate or cordate, margin setose-serrate to serrate to undulate-serrate or subentire, tips of serrations usually callose, apex acute to acuminate to obtuse or rounded. Inflorescences cymose, 1-3-flowered, glabrous or slightly puberulent; peduncles 0.7-1.5 cm; pedicels 1.1-1.7 cm. Flowers white. Sepals 5, ovate, 4-5 mm, glabrous, or abaxially glabrous and adaxially tomentose. Petals 5, obovate, 8-10 mm. Filaments 3-5 mm; anthers yellow, ovoid, 1.5-2 mm, sagittate at base. Ovary subglobose, densely white pubescent; styles slightly longer than ovary. Fruit grayish green, subglobose to ovoid or mammilliform, 1.5-5 cm, glabrous, lenticels brownish, orbicular, conspicuous. Seeds 2-2.5 mm. Fl. Apr-Jun, fr. Sep-Oct. 2n = 58, 116.

The taxonomy of this species remains a complex issue open to further investigation.

Forests, forest margins, thickets, slopes, valleys, streamsides, moist places, also widely cultivated; 400-2600 m. Anhui, Chongqing, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Bhutan, India, Nepal].