Saururaceae is a plant family comprising four genera and seven species of herbaceous flowering plants native to eastern and southern Asia and North America. The family has been recognised by most taxonomists, and is sometimes known as the "lizard's-tail family". The APG II system assigned it to the order Piperales in the clade magnoliids.

Wet places, ditches, meadows, riverbanks, streamsides, forests, thickets, roadsides, field margins; near sea level to 1700 m. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Shandong, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [India, Japan (including Ryukyu Islands), Korea, Philippines, Vietnam]

Herbs to more than 1 m high; rhizomes creeping, white, thick. Stems strong, basal part creeping and usually whitish, apical part erect and green. Stipular sheath 2-10 mm, ca. as long as petiole, slightly clasping; petiole 1-3 cm, glabrous; leaf blade ovate to ovate-lanceolate.