Perennial herbs, monoecious, climbing with 2-fid tendrils. Leaves simple, palmately 5-lobed. Flowers small, white, cream or pale yellowish, male in short fascicles; female solitary or clustered and in the same axil as males. Calyx tube broadly campanulate, lined within by a nectary, 5-lobed, small. Corolla gamopetalous, 5-lobed, broadly campanulate, small; entire. Stamens 3, two 2-thecous and one 1-thecous, inserted on the calyx tube, anthers ovoid. Staminodes 3, short; disc annular, indistinct. Ovary terete, ovules horizontal, few; style slender, stigmas 3, bilobed; pistillode absent. Fruit a berry, globose-ovoid or ovoid-rostrate, red, longitudinally lined or variegated. Seeds pyriform, with highly convex disc and 2-grooved margin.