Climbing herbs with perennial roots. Dioecious, rarely monoecious. Tendrils simple. Leaves 3-5-angled or palmately 3-5-lobed; petiolate. Flowers small, white or yellow, male flowers racemose or fasciculate; calyx tube broadly campanulate, segments oblong. Stamens 3, rarely 5, filaments free, short; anthers free or slightly coherent, broadly oblong, one 1-locular, the others 2-locular, loculi linear, curved, somewhat sigmoid, pistillode absent; female flowers corymbose or racemose, calyx and corolla as in the male, staminodes 3-5; ovary ovoid, style slender, 3-fid at the top, inserted on an annular disc; stigmas 3, 2-lobed, ovules numerous, horizontal, placentas 3. Fruit baccate, spherical, indehiscent, several to few-seeded. Seeds ovoid or oblong with thickened corrugated margin.