Climbers and vines, herbaceous, perennial; stems to 4 m, quadrangular, 4-ridged, or usually 4-winged at least when older with wings to 1.5 mm wide, glabrous or hirtellous-puberulent at nodes, retrorsely aculeolate. Leaves and leaflike stipules in whorls of 4, often unequal (stipules smaller); petiole 0.2-10 cm, on principal axes longer than on lateral ones, those of stipules often shorter or even lacking; blade drying thinly leathery, linear-lanceolate or narrowly lanceolate, 3.5-9 × 0.4-2 cm, with length/breadth index above 3, glabrous and smooth or sometimes sparsely scaberulous, base rounded to cordulate, margin thinly revolute and usually aculeolate, apex acute; principal veins palmate, 3(or 5) with lateral veins sometimes weakly evident. Inflorescences thyrsoid, paniculate, with terminal and axillary, many-flowered cymes; axes smooth to aculeolate, ridged to thinly winged; bracts elliptic to lanceolate-elliptic, 0.8-3 mm; pedicels 1-4 mm. Ovary ca. 0.7 mm, smooth. Corolla white, pale yellow, or greenish, campanulate, fused base 0.5-1 mm, glabrous; lobes triangular to lanceolate, 1.2-1.5 mm, apex caudate-acuminate. Mericarp berry black, 5-7 mm. Fl. May-Aug, fr. Aug-Nov.
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