Vines; rhizomes knotty, short. Stems perennial, climbing, branching, terete, to 7+ m × 9 mm, woody, glabrous, with prickles proximally, prickles usually absent distally; prickles blackish, unequal, 3–10+ mm, bristly, flexible. Leaves ± persistent in southern part of range, deciduous in north; petiole 1–2 cm; blade green, drying to light olive-gray, ovate-lanceolate, ovate, or sometimes pandurate, prominently reticulate, thin, 5–13 × 3–10 cm, not glaucous, glabrous (to prickly on major veins abaxially), base rounded to cordate, margins entire apically, minutely serrulate basally, thin, flat, not banded, not lobed, apex pointed. Umbels many, axillary to leaves, to 25-flowered, open to dense, spherical; peduncle often drooping, 1.5–6.5 cm. Flowers: peri-anth green to bronze; tepals 4–5 mm; anthers ± equaling to shorter than filaments; ovule 1 per locule; pedicel 0.4–1.2 cm. Berries black, globose, 6–10 mm, not glaucous.
Wet to dry woods, thickets and bottomlands, mainly on the coastal plain, in sandy or, less often, silty clay soils; ar elevations up to 400 metres. Rich, often calcareous, soils in woods, thickets and bottoms.
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