Fls perfect or unisexual, in panicles or racemes, rarely solitary; receptacle broad; sepals 5, persistent; petals 5; stamens ∞; carpels ∞, on convex receptacle. Fr. of aggregated 1-seeded drupelets; seed pend. Scrambling, us. ± prickly shrubs or lianes; lvs us. palmately lobed or compound, stipules adnate to petiole. Cosmopolitan with c. 1000 spp.; the N.Z. spp. endemic.

Shrubs or subshrubs, sometimes perennial herbs, often suckering or layering; habit partially erect with arching or flexuous branches, or lianoid or scrambling; stems biennial or perennial, sometimes rooting at apices, usually armed with prickles or pricklets or both, sometimes densely tomentose or pilose, sometimes glandular. Lvs distributed along stems, alternate, petiolate, imparipinnate or palmate with 3-7 toothed or lobed leaflets, occasionally reduced to a single leaflet or simple and palmately lobed with coalescing leaflets; stipules free or adnate to petiole, small- to medium-sized, persistent or deciduous. Fls often in leafy racemes or panicles, or solitary, usually born on shoots of previous year's growth, usually 5-merous, usually ☿, rarely unisexual, pedicellate, often showy. Hypanthium with a large, often convex carpophore. Epicalyx 0. Calyx of 5 sepals, sometimes conspicuous and leafy. Petals 5 or rarely more, white to pink or rarely yellowish or purple. Stamens numerous, rarely few, arising from hypanthium rim. Ovary superior; carpels usually numerous; styles usually deciduous; ovules 2 but 1 aborting. Fr. a fleshy aggregate of 1-seeded drupelets.