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Herbs , perennial, deciduous, to 2-9 dm, glabrous. Rhizomes nodose, producing 2 leaves per year. Aerial stems present. Leaves caducous, cauline, 2-ranked, 1st leaf larger than 2d leaf, 2-4-ternately compound; petioles short or absent. Leaf blade broadly obovate in overall outline; rachis pulvinate; leaflet blades broadly obovate, entire or lobed, margins not toothed; venation pinnate to palmate. Inflorescences terminal, compound cymes. Flowers 3-merous, 6-20 mm; bracteoles caducous, 3-4, sepaloid; sepals 6, yellow, purple, red, brown, or green, petaloid; petals 6, fan-shaped, bearing nectar; stamens 6; anthers dehiscing by 2 apically hinged flaps; pollen exine reticulate; ovary bladderlike; placentation appearing basal; styles eccentric. Fruits not developed, ovary wall soon rupturing. Seeds 2, elevated on elongating stalk, naked at maturity; seed coat blue, fleshy, glaucous; aril absent. x = 8.
Sep 6, biseriate, petaloid, subtended by 3 or 4 sepal-like bracts; pet 6, biseriate, represented only by small, stipitate-flabellate, gland-like nectaries opposite and much shorter than the sep; stamens 6; ovary asymmetrical, tapering above and with a minute apicolateral stigma; poisonous smooth perennial herbs, the erect stem bearing above the middle a single large, sessile, triternate lf, simulating 3 biternate lvs, and another smaller lf just below the infl; ovary soon ruptured by the enlarging seeds, which ripen fully exposed on short, stout stalks and resemble drupes. 2, the other in e. Asia.
