Lianas or shrubs to 20 m, sometimes only weakly woody, dioecious, carnivorous. Stem simple or branched, erect, climbing, or procumbent, cylindric or triangular in cross section, glabrous or pubescent. Leaves alternate, petiolate or sessile; midvein prolonged into a tendril, apex of tendril usually developing into a dimorphic pitcher with a lid usually projecting over mouth and a spur inserted at base of lid. Pitchers toward base of plant ovoid, facing inward, with 2 fringed wings, tendril ventral, uncoiled; pitchers toward apex of plant cylindric or funnelform, facing outward, wings generally unfringed or reduced to ridges, tendril dorsal, coiled. Inflorescence terminal (appearing leaf opposed because of continued axillary growth), racemose, or with secondary branches 2-flowered or cincinni, usually sparsely bracteate. Flowers regular; perianth in 1 whorl of (3 or)4 tepals. Male flowers with 4-24 anthers; filaments united into a column; pistils inconspicuous. Female flowers with inconspicuous anthers; pistils (3 or)4; ovary superior, stipitate or not, ovoid-globose or tetragonal-terete, rarely obdeltoid, (3 or)4-loculed; placentation axile; ovules numerous, in many rows; style very short to obsolete; stigma disclike, (3 or)4-lobed. Capsule (3 or)4-valved, leathery or woody, loculicidally dehiscent. Seeds numerous, usually hairlike; embryo straight; endosperm fleshy.

All species of the Nepenthaceae are carnivorous, so far as is known.

Ruan Yun-zhen. 1984. Nepenthaceae. In: Fu Shu-hsia & Fu Kun-tsun, eds., Fl. Reipubl. Popularis Sin. 34(1): 11-14.

One genus and ca. 85 species: Africa (Madagascar), S and SE Asia, N Australia, Pacific Islands (Caroline Islands); one species in China.

(Authors: Lu Lianli (Lou Lian-li); Martin Cheek, Matthew H. P. Jebb)