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Herbs, climbing, annual or perennial. Leaf blade simple, unlobed or palmately 3-7(-9)-lobed, rarely compound and 3-5-foliolate, margin usually denticulate. Tendrils usually 2-5-fid, rarely simple. Plants dioecious, rarely monoecious; flowers usually white, rarely pink or red. Male flowers usually in racemes, rarely solitary, sometimes male peduncles in axillary pairs, one 1-flowered, caducous, other bearing a raceme; bracts variable in size and form, rarely absent; calyx tube cylindric, frequently dilated at apex; segments 5, entire, serrate, or laciniate; corolla segments 5, usually long fimbriate; stamens 3, inserted on calyx tube; filaments very short, free; anthers connate, two 2-celled, other 1-celled, cells conduplicate. Female flowers solitary, very rarely in racemes; calyx and corolla as in male flowers; ovary inferior, ovoid or fusiform, 1-loculed with 3 parietal placentas; ovules usually many, generally horizontal, half pendulous; style slender; stigmas 3, entire or bifid. Fruit globose, ovoid, or fusiform, fleshy, usually glabrous and smooth, many seeded, indehiscent. Seeds packed in pulp, 1-loculed, oblong or ovate, and compressed, or 3-loculed, turgid, with 2 lateral locules empty.
Monoecious or dioecious climbing or trailing herbs, sometimes woody at base, annual or perennial, glabrous or pubescent. Tendrils simple or 2-or 3-branched. Probracts present or absent. Leaves simple, unlobed or palmately 3–7-lobed or compound, 3-foliolate or pedately 5-foliolate. Male flowers in axillary racemes, mostly bracteate, rarely solitary; hypanthium narrow, elongate, widening towards mouth; calyx 5-lobed; lobes subulate to triangular; corolla 5-lobed, the lobes triangular to ovate; limb rotate, fringed with hairlike outgrowths, mostly white; stamens 3, inserted towards mouth of hypanthium; anthers free or united, two bilocular, one unilocular; locules flexuose, triplicate; disc absent. Female flowers solitary; perianth similar to males; staminodes absent; ovary ovoid to fusiform; ovules many, horizontal; style long; stigmas 3, entire or bifid. Fruit fleshy, ellipsoidal, ovoid, fusiform or elongate. Seeds numerous, compressed or turgid, smooth or ornamented, 1-or 3-locular, the central locule containing the embryo.
