Source:
SSA
Description:
Lianas or scandent shrubs, dioecious or monoecious. Leaves alternate, petiolate, with entire to lobed margin. Flowers (3)4(5)-parted, valvate. Male flowers in slender spikes; stamens (3)4(5), shorter than perianth; filaments linear, about as long as anthers; anthers linear; ovary rudimentary. Female flowers in short, few-flowered spikes; stamens absent; ovary globose, 1-locular, with 2 ovules, villous; stigma sessile, of a number of radiating tubes. Fruit a drupe; endocarp crustaceous, verrucose-papillose inside, papillae projecting into interstices of deeply ruminate and pitted endosperm; embryo with thin foliaceous cotyledons in centre of copious fleshy endosperm. x = 10 (1 report).
Distribution:
Species 25-30, Africa, Madagascar, Indochina and Malesia; 3 in eastern and southern parts of sthn Afr.
Classification:
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