A perennial, high-climbing woody vine. Mature bark is shredding and peeling. The simple leaves are opposite, rotund, 10-20 cm.
Leaf margins are coarse and sharply serrated.
Young leaf blades tend to be pubescent underneath. As they mature, the undersides become green and glabrous with tufts of pubescent hairs between the veins. River-bank grape is common in floodplain forests, wooded swamps, upland woods, shrub swamps, along riverbanks, fence rows, and on sandy shores and dunes.