Climbing shrubs, large, deciduous. Floral branchlets glabrous, rarely strigose, lenticels very conspicuous; pith brown, lamellate, or sometimes solid; buds densely rusty strigose; two-year-old branches grayish, with rugose striae when dry, lenticels dehiscent or not, pith brown, lamellate. Petiole reddish, 2-8 cm, glabrous, rarely strigose; leaf blade abaxially pale green, adaxially dark green, ovate to broadly ovate to obovate or elliptic, 5-12 × 3.5-8.5 cm, abaxially glabrous except for barbate vein axils, adaxially glabrous or occasionally strigillose, midvein and lateral veins conspicuous abaxially, slightly sulcate adaxially, lateral veins 6-8 pairs, reticulate veins subconspicuous to conspicuous, with slightly raised parallel cross-bars, base broadly cuneate to rounded to truncate or cordate, margin setose-serrate to serrate to undulate-serrate or subentire, tips of serrations usually callose, apex acute to acuminate to obtuse or rounded. Inflorescences cymose, 1-3-flowered, glabrous or slightly puberulent; peduncles 0.7-1.5 cm; pedicels 1.1-1.7 cm. Flowers white. Sepals 5, ovate, 4-5 mm, glabrous, or abaxially glabrous and adaxially tomentose. Petals 5, obovate, 8-10 mm. Filaments 3-5 mm; anthers yellow, ovoid, 1.5-2 mm, sagittate at base. Ovary subglobose, densely white pubescent; styles slightly longer than ovary. Fruit grayish green, subglobose to ovoid or mammilliform, 1.5-5 cm, glabrous, lenticels brownish, orbicular, conspicuous. Seeds 2-2.5 mm. Fl. Apr-Jun, fr. Sep-Oct. 2n = 58, 116.
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Rambling or trailing shrub or liana up to 30 m, twig-lenticels distinct, wood and inner bark orange. Petiole red s.v., 1-4 cm, blade rather variable in shape ovate-elliptic or obovate, acuminate, midrib red s.v., 5-10½ by 2½-6 cm,sidenerves ca 5-6 pairs rather steeply ascending and substraight, insertion decurrent, margin distinctly serrate or dentate, teeth erect at the end of a vein, apex acuminate, base rounded to subcuneate. Indumentum meagre or absent, consisting of short often somewhat crisped pluri-celled simple hairs. Peduncle, pedicels and calyx thin-tomentose. Peduncle ¼-1½ cm, pedicels ½-1¼ cm, all thin. Dioecious, flowers white, anthers yellow. Sepals ovate-orbicular, ca 6 by 5 mm. Petals oblique-broad-spathulate, subfleshy, margin ± irregular, ca 10 by 7 mm. Stamens ∞ in ca 2 rows, filaments subequal, ca 6 mm (in ♀ very short); anthers 1⅔ by 1 mm, apex subapiculate (in ♀ sterile, hardly dehiscing); ♀ flowers unknown to me. Ovary stout cylindric, styles ca 2 mm (in ♂ very small, reduced). Berry grey-green, spotted grey or brown, entirely syncarp, oboval to broad-elliptic, often oblique, apex often concave, 17-27 by 14-18 mm, base rounded, sepals recurved. Seeds elliptic, 3 by 1½ mm.
A climber to 9 m long. The stems can be 10 cm across. The leaves are stalked. The leaves are 8-15 cm long and oval and pointed. Male and female flowers occur on separate plants. The flowers are 1.5-2.5 cm across. There are five rounded petals that are overlapping. Flowers are white. The fruit is a green berry. Fruit are 1.8-2.2 cm long and have many small seeds.
Forests, thickets, forest margins, valleys, slopes, streamsides and moist places at elevations of 400-2,600 metres in China. Mountain forests and forest borders at elevations of 1,000-2,040 metres in Malaysia.
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Forests, thickets, forest margins, valleys, slopes, streamsides and moist places at elevations of 400-2,600 metres in China. Mountain forests and forest borders at elevations of 1,000-2,040 metres in Malaysia.
A tropical and subtropical plant. It grows in W. China and the Himalayas in forests and shrubby areas up to 3000 metres altitude. In Nepal they grow at 1300-3000 m altitude. In Sichuan and Yunnan.
Climbing into trees in forests, thickets and valleys at elevations of 500-2,600 metres in western and southern China.
Mountain forests, forest borders, 1000-2040 m, rather rare.
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