Carelia Jussieu ex Cavanilles (1803), not Fabricius (1759), nor Lessing (1832); Corynanthelium Kunze; Kanimia Gardner; Willoughbya Necker ex Kuntze.

Plants usually woody vines, sometimes erect perennial herbs or shrubs, moderately branched, never rosulate. Leaves opposite or whorled, sessile to long petiolate; blade linear to broadly ovate, membranous to leathery, base narrow to cordate. Synflorescence terminal on stems or lateral branches, cymose to corymbose or thyrsoid; capitula clustered, sessile to pedunculate, with subinvolucral bract; phyllaries distant, 4, subequal, persistent; receptacle flat, epaleate. Florets 4; corollas white or pink, funnelform or with variously campanulate limb, with or without distinct basal tube, glabrous to pilosulose or glandular on outer surface, with or without papillae on inside of throat or lobes; lobes broadly triangular to narrowly oblong; antheropodium broad; anther cylinder exserted from corolla throat; anther appendages as long as or longer than wide; style base thick, without distinct basal node, glabrous or sometimes papillose; style branches narrowly linear, not broadened at apex, scarcely to strongly papillose. Achenes prismatic, 4-10-ribbed; carpopodium broadly cylindric; pappus setae numerous, persistent, capillary-like, apical cells obtuse to acute.

See Holmes’s Revision of Old World Mikania (Compositae) (Bot. Jahrb. Syst. 103: 211-246. 1982).

About 430 species: pantropical, mainly in Brazil; two species (one introduced) in China.