Slender scandent shrub or liana, with axillary tendrils usually present. Leaves spiral or subdistichous, slightly peltate, 3-5-plinerved, long-petioled. Flowers very small, bisexual, or andro-dioecious, borne in loose, slender, peduncled and repeatedly dichotomous many-flowered cymes; bracts minute. Calyx cupular, with 4 or 5 short, broad, subimbricate teeth, the basal part accrescent and covering the fruit. Petals 5, ovate-triangular, coherent by their bases, recurved. Stamens 5, inserted at the base of the petals, each provided there with 2 lateral scales (or staminodes?); filaments very short; anthers ovate, introrse; connective thickish. Disk cup-shaped, 5-crenate. Ovary (rudimentary in the ♂) inferior, tapering to a short conical style with a minutely 3-lobed stigma, (2-) 3-celled below, 1-celled above; placenta central, free, with 2 or 3 unitegmic ovules pendent from its apex. Fruit drupaceous, crowned by the persistent calyx lobes and remains of the disk, ellipsoid, stipitate-contracted downwards; pericarp thin-fleshy; endocarp crustaceous to woody, splitting into 3-6 segments. Seed 1; embryo minute near the apex of the large albumen which contains oily substances.
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Scandent shrubs or lianas, with axillary tendrils. Branchlets unarmed. Leaves alternate; leaf blade slightly peltate, palmately 3-5-veined. Inflorescences a dichotomous cyme. Calyx cupular, 4-or 5-dentate, accrescent and covering fruit. Petals 5, ovate-triangular, bases coherent. Stamens 5, inserted at base of petals; filaments short; anthers ovoid. Disk cupular, 5-crenate. Ovary inferior, 1-loculed; placenta central, free; ovules 2 or 3. Style conic; stigma 3-lobed. Drupe ellipsoid, crowned by persistent calyx, splitting into 3-5 1-seeded segments when mature.
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