Herbs, perennial, evergreen or deciduous, 1-5 dm, glabrous, glandular-pubescent, or sparsely hairy. Rhizomes extensive, creeping, nodose, producing 3 or more foliage leaves and flowering shoots per year. Aerial stems absent. Leaves basal, alternate, 2-3-ternately compound (sometimes 3-5-foliolate in V . chrysantha ); petiole long, slender. Leaf blade deltate in overall outline; rachis without pulvinae; leaflet blades rhomboid or rounded pentagonal to ovate to oblong, shallowly 3-lobed, margins entire to sinuate; venation palmate. Inflorescences terminal, racemes or panicles, open. Flowers 3-merous, 6-14 mm; bracteoles 6-9, sepaloid; sepals 6, white to yellow; petals 6, white to yellow, hooded with tip reflexed or flat, bearing nectar; stamens 6; anthers dehiscing by 2 apically hinged flaps; pollen exine striate; ovaries ellipsoid; placentation marginal; style lateral. Fruits follicles, brown, asymmetric, generally elliptic, dehiscing by 2 valves. Seeds 4-7, black to reddish brown; aril whitish, covering ca. 1/2-2/3 of seed. x = 6.
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