Smilax tetraptera Gagnepain, Bull. Soc. Bot. France 81: 74. 1934, not Schlechter (1906).

Vines climbing. Stem branched, woody; branches 4-angled, sometimes sparsely prickly, angles narrowly winged. Petiole 1.5--4 cm, winged for ca. 2/3 its length; wings 1--3 mm wide; abscission zone distal; tendrils sometimes present. Leaf blade ovate-lanceolate or elliptic-lanceolate, 17--25 × 4--10 cm, thickly leathery, main veins 3(--5), base rounded or broadly cuneate. Inflorescence of 1 umbel, basally prophyllate; peduncle 1.5--4 cm, proximally articulate; umbel 5--20-flowered.

Only a few sterile specimens have been collected in China; one of them possesses immature fruit.

Open forests; ca. 700 m. SW Guangxi, SE Yunnan [Vietnam].