Woody climbers. Leaves not peltate (in Malesia), palmately nerved. Inflorescences axillary, cymose and subumbelliform, pedunculate, cymes solitary or fasciculate. Flowers: sepals 9, the outermost 3 narrow and minute, the inner 6 imbricate and concave, the innermost 3 broader than the others; petals 6, cuneate. Male flowers with stamens 6, free (in Malesia); anthers dehiscing longitudinally. Female flowers with 6 filamentose staminodes; carpels 3; stigma deeply bifid, recurved. Drupe curved with style-scar near base; endocarp rotund in outline, dorsally covered with short pointed processes, laterally concave, condyle septiform, imperforate; seed horseshoe-shaped; embryo enclosed in endosperm, elongate and narrow, terete, radicle much longer than the subterete cotyledons.