Shrubs, erect or scrambling, or sometimes woody climbers. Trunk winged. Stems, branchlets, and leaf rachises usually with prickles. Rachis of inflorescences and abaxial surface of leaflet blades glabrous or hirsutulous. Leaves (3 or)5-11-foliolate; petiolules obsolete or to 5 mm; leaflet blades opposite, broadly ovate, subcordate, elliptic, narrowly elliptic, or rarely ovate, 3-12 × 1.5-6(-8) cm, leathery, secondary and tertiary veins abaxially ridged when dry, margin crenate at least toward apex or entire, apex acuminate to caudate with a retuse tip. Inflorescences axillary. Flowers 4-merous. Perianth in 2 series. Sepals ca. 1 mm wide, apically purplish green. Petals pale yellowish green, ovate-elliptic to oblong, ca. 3 mm. Stamens in male flowers 5-6 mm; mature anthers ellipsoid to globose. Petals in female flowers broader than those in male flowers. Gynoecium in female flowers 4-carpelled; carpels globose. Styles stout, coherent at anthesis; stigma capitate. Fruit pedicel 2-5 mm; follicles reddish brown, (5-)5.5-7 mm in diam., apex beaked. Fl. Mar-May, fr. Sep-Nov or May.

Below 800 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, S and SE Guizhou, Hainan, S Hunan, Taiwan, Yunnan, S Zhejiang [India, Indonesia, Japan (Ryukyu Islands), Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, New Guinea, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam; Australia, SW Pacific islands].