Annual or perennial, climbing or trailing, monoecious, rarely dioecious herbs. Sterns and leaves mostly scabrid or hispid. Tendrils simple. Leaves variously 3-7-lobed, margin dentate or serrate. Female flowers solitary. Male flowers mostly fascicled. Calyx campanulate, lobes 5, subulate. Corolla yellow, turbinate, rotate or subcampanulate, 5-lobed, lobes mostly oblong or ovate and acute. Stamens 3, free, inserted at the base of calyx, 1-2-celled, filaments short, connectives produced, bifid; pistillode glandular. Ovary ovoid or globose, ovules horizontal, numerous. Staminodes setiform or ligulate. Style short, simple, surrounded by annular disc. Stigmas 3(-5), obtuse, spherical or obovate. Ovary ovoid, ovules numerous. Fruit smooth, echinate or spinous; seeds smooth and compressed, mostly without margin.