It is a deciduous woody vine growing to 30 m tall or more given suitable support, attaching itself by means of numerous small branched tendrils tipped with sticky disks.

The leaf color is initially reddish green to bronze during budding, then orange-yellow to intense scarlet in autumn.

P. tricuspidata uses adhesive pads to attach to surfaces, allowing it to climb vertically up trees, walls, and other structures.

[3] The ability of a single adhesive pad to support thousands of times their weight may be explored as a model for new biomimetic materials.

In the U.S., Boston ivy is used on the brick outfield walls at Wrigley Field of baseball's Chicago Cubs along with Japanese bittersweet (Celastrus orbiculatus).

In contexts of Korean traditional medicine, it is known as jigeum (지금/地錦, a cognate with the Mandarin Chinese dìjǐn from the Compendium of Materia Medica, as well as other names such as nakseok (낙석/絡石), jangchundeung (장춘등/長春藤), pasanho (파산호/爬山虎), naman (나만/蘿蔓) and yongninbyeongnyeo (용린벽려/龍鱗薜荔).

In Japanese, the vine is known usually as tsuta (蔦; つた;ツタ), but also as amazura (甘葛; あまづら; アマヅラ), lit.

"sweet vine"[a] natsuzuta (夏蔦; なつづた; ナツヅタ), or rarely jinishiki (地錦; じにしき;ジニシキ).

In Okinawan, the vine is called cita (蔦; つぃた), while in the Taiwanese indigenous language Paiwan it is tiyaroromao.