Description from Flora of China
Shrubs, scandent, mostly climbing or creeping. Branchlets terete, sometimes with 4 faint ridges. Leaves opposite, petiolate, connected by interpetiolar stipular rims; leaf blade margin
entire. Flowers axillary, solitary, paired, or in cymes, when in cymes usually few-flowered but sometimes grouped into a thyrse; bracteoles small, narrowly triangular. Flowers 4- or
5-merous. Calyx small, deeply lobed; lobes imbricate, connate, inside with colleters at base. Corolla rotate to subcampanulate; tube thin, fleshy; lobes thin to thick, fleshy, valvate in
bud. Stamens exserted; filaments very short, flat; anthers 2- or 4-locular, connate or free, base 2-parted, introrse. Ovary small, 2-locular, with 1--4 ovules per locule. Style mostly long,
slender; stigma capitate or 2-cleft. Berries red, globose, 1-seeded or more. Seeds ellipsoid to orbicular, concave on hilar side but convex on other side; seed coat thin; embryo tiny,
almost cylindrical; endosperm thick, horny.
Five species: E and SE Asia; five species in China.
(Authors: Li Ping-tao; Michael G. Gilbert)