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Climbing perennial herbs, dioecious or rarely monoecious, sometimes woody at base, glabrous or pubescent with simple, multicellular or glandular hairs. Tendrils simple or 2-branched. Leaves simple, palmately 3–5-lobed or compound, 3–5-foliolate. Male flowers small, in axillary panicles, sometimes with reduced leaves and terminating lateral branches, rarely in racemes; hypanthium cupular; calyx 5-lobed, the lobes ovate to lanceolate; corolla deeply 5-lobed, the lobes ovate, subrotate. Stamens 5, inserted on disc; anthers ovate, unilocular. Female flowers in panicles or racemes smaller than males, rarely solitary and co-axillary with males; perianth similar to males; ovary cylindrical-conical; ovules many, pendulous; styles 3, stigmas bifid, curved. Fruit a subtrigonous or cylindrical, clavate, truncate capsule, dehiscing by 3 valves. Seeds many, more or less ovate, compressed, sculptured, margins wavy, terminated by a membranous wing.
Herbs or shrubs, climbing. Leaves simple or often 3-5-foliolate, leaflets sometimes 2-glandular at base. Tendrils simple or 2-fid. Plants dioecious. Male flowers in paniculate or racemose inflorescences in axils of leaves; peduncle and pedicels filiform; calyx tube cupular, 5-partite; segments oblong or oblong-lanceolate; corolla rotate, 5-partite; segments oblong; stamens 5, free; filaments short, united at base; anthers oblong, 1-celled. Female flowers in lax axillary panicles or racemes; ovary 1-locular or imperfectly 3-locular; ovules numerous, pendulous; styles 3, rarely 4; stigma semilunar. Fruit clavate or cylindric, terete or slightly 3-angled, apex broadly truncate and 3-valved. Seeds imbricate, compressed, terminated by a very thin elongated wing, margins wavy-tuberculate, testa crustaceous.
