Deciduous subshrubs, or scandent and scrambling, or sometimes semiwoody vines, 2-6(-10) m; branching distally, slender or scrambling, minutely pubescent when young or in open sunlight, becoming glabrous when old or in shade, slightly angled, verrucose or not. Petiole 1-2 cm; stipules linear, cadu cous; leaf blade usually ovate or rounded-ovate, sometimes oblong or elliptic-ovate, (4.6-)8.6-12.5(-18.4) × (3.1-)5.7-8.9(-12.3) cm, papery, herbaceous (in shade or low light) to leathery (in direct sunlight or very dry conditions), glabrous or sparsely scurfy tomentose with reddish brown hairs, abaxially ± farinose, base broadly cuneate, or rounded to cordate, margin entire or less often crenulate, apex short to long acuminate or acute, tip often blunt. Thyrses large, composed of several to dozens of thyrselets, (4.5-)12.5-23.6(-38) × (2.3-)4.7-9.3(-15) cm; flowers 1 normal and 1 an unfertilized male. Flowers whitish, greenish, or yellow-green, small, 4-6 × 4-6 mm; calyx 5-lobed, hemispheric, ca. 1 mm; petals 5, oblong to subovate, slightly narrowed to base, 2-2.5 mm, apex rounded. Stamens 5, inserted at margin of cup-shaped and compressed disk. Disk bright green, fleshy, ca. 2 mm in diam. Ovary superior, 3-edged, combined with disk at base, incompletely 3-locular, with 3 prominent ca. 1 mm lobes, short style at apex; stigma capitate, bright purple. Samara usually green or greenish brown when mature, sometimes pink or pinkish purple, (1-)1.3-1.9(-2.3) × (0.7-)1.2-1.5(-1.9) cm. Seed compressed, 3-angled, ca. 5 × 1.3-3 mm. Fl. May-Oct, fr. Aug-Nov.
Field and ditch edges and on the banks of streams. Forest edge, woodlands, mixed forests and bushes at elevations of 150-3,450 metres.
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