Byttneria

Climbing shrubs or lianes; young branches puberulous. Leaves alternate, simple, petiolate, cordate-ovate, acute, denticulate, palmately 5-7-nerved; petioles shorter than blades; stipules subulate, soon caducous. Inflorescences slender, leaf-opposed cymes, sometimes with additional smaller subaxillary cymes; bracteoles linear, small. Flowers small, pedicellate; buds conical. Sepals 5, lanceolate, finely tomentellose. Petals 5, cucullate and adhering to each other at level of anthers, with a long narrow basal claw and a long, subapical linear appendage. Staminal tube widening towards mouth; anthers 5, subglobose, subsessile, arising at top of tube, 2-thecous, alternating with 5 very short staminodes. Ovary 5-locular, sessile or subsessile, muricate-hispid when young, becoming long-hispid; ovules 2 per locule; style short; stigma 5-lobed. Capsule globose, septicidally dehiscent into 5 1-seeded mericarps with long-spiny backs. Seeds ovoid, smooth, brownish red, sometimes maculate.