Vines , twining or clambering. Stems often bluish green, apically tomentose grading to glabrate. Leaves not peltate. Leaf blade generally pentagonal, palmately 3-5-lobed, base cordate, margins of lobes entire or coarsely dentate, apex caudate-acuminate, not mucronate; surfaces sparsely bristly or glabrous. Inflorescences axillary, racemes or panicles; bracts absent. Flowers 3-ranked; sepals 6-9, elliptic to obovate, glabrous. Staminate flowers: petals absent; stamens 6-12; filaments distinct; anthers 2-locular; pistillodes absent. Pistillate flowers: petals absent or vestigial; staminodes 6-91, poorly developed; pistils 3; ovary ellipsoid to fusiform, glabrous; stigma multicleft. Drupes globose to ellipsoid, glabrous; endocarp smooth, cup-shaped with erose margins, glabrous. Species

Sep 6; pet none; stamens 12; pistils 3, narrowed to the summit and there radially dilated into a lobed stigma; fr ellipsoid, flattened on one side; stone deeply excavated on one side, its margin somewhat incurved and erose; woody twiners. Monospecific.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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