Climbing and trailing, tuberous rooted, monoecious, perennial herbs, scabrid to subtomentose. Trendril simple. Leaves simple, petiolate, broadly ovate or reniform, cordate, palmately lobed, leaf lobes minutely apiculate-obtuse. Flowers small, dull or greenish-yellow. Male crowded at the apex, usually on long peduncles, few to many, sometimes produced on contracted, ± leafless branches at the nodes, calyx tube campanulate with small lobes. Petals connate at the base. Stamens 3, free, inserted on the calyx tube, one 1-thecous, the others 2-thecous, filaments short, thecae short, straight, lateral. Female flowers solitary or fascicled, subsessile, often co-axillary with the male inflorescence. Disc absent. Staminodes when present 5, subulate. Stigma 2(-3)-lobed. Fruit a berry, small, ovoid or ellipsoid, often beaked, red or yellowish-red, operculately dehiscent at the base. Seeds small, asymmetrically pyriform to subglobose.