Mostly herbaceous, annual or perennial climbers or trailers, usually with tendrils, often with tuberous rootstock. Leaves alternate, petiolate, simple and usually palmately lobed, or pedately compound, without stipules. Tendrils inserted laterally to the leaf-base, simple or 2–7-branched, rarely reduced or absent. Usually monoecious or dioecious; flowers regular or rarely zygomorphic; inflorescences various. Hypanthium present, epigynous in female flowers. Sepals usually 5, free. Petals usually 5, united, often shortly, or rarely free. Stamens basically 5, alternate with the corolla-lobes, nearly always one-thecous and nearly always variously united, commonly appearing as 2 pairs of ± united stamens and 1 free stamen, or the filaments partly or completely united into a central column; anther-thecae often variously sinuous or convoluted. Ovary inferior, of usually 2–3 united carpels or of 1 carpel; placentation usually parietal, the placentae massive and intrusive; ovules anatropous, 1–many. Style 1, with usually 2–3 bilobed stigmas, or styles 2–3. Fruit various, usually a fleshy or hard-shelled berry, indehiscent or variously dehiscent. Seed 1–many, large, often compressed, non-endospermous; embryo straight.