Shrubs, herbs, or woody vines with tendrils; leaves alternate, simple or palmately compound, stipulate; flowers perfect or unisexual, regular, small, in cymes or panicles often leaf-opposed; sepals 4-5 (or rarely 3, 6, or 7); petals the same number as the sepals, valvate; stamens, one opposite each petals; disc annular or lobed; ovary superior, 2-6-celled, cells 1-2-ovulate; style simple or the stigma sessile; fruit a berry (e.g. grape); seeds endospermous. -About 10 genera and 500 species, chiefly tropical, a few temperate. Two genera, both exotic, in Guam.