Woody climbers. Stem grayish white. Branchlets, leaf rachises, and midvein of leaflet blades with brownish red prickles. Leaves (3 or)5-9-foliolate; petiolules 3-10 mm; leaflet blades alternate to subopposite, symmetric or rarely oblique, to 20 × 1-8 cm, thickly papery to subleathery, glabrous, oil glands inconspicuous, midvein adaxially impressed, margin entire, repand, denticulate, or serrate, apex acuminate to caudate. Inflorescences axillary, to 10 cm; rachis pubescent. Flowers 4-merous. Perianth in 2 series. Sepals purplish green, broadly ovate, less than 1 mm. Petals pale yellowish green, broadly ovate, 4-5 mm. Male flowers: pedicel 1-3 mm; stamens 4; filaments 5-6 mm; rudimentary gynoecium 4-lobed. Female flowers without staminodes. Fruit follicles brown, densely pressed together in infructescence, 1-1.5 cm; outer part of pericarp (exocarp and mesocarp) extended beyond endocarp on each side of suture in dehisced fruit, smooth. Seeds 8-10 mm in diam. Fl. Apr-May or Nov-Dec, fr. Sep-Nov.

● Upland thickets and open forests, forests; 300-2600 m. S Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, SW Henan, Hubei, Hunan, S Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan.