genus descriptions: SSTAs

Dioecious climbing shrubs; branches hirsute. Leaves alternate, entire, shortly petiolate, penninerved. Inflorescences: male and female in loose spikes or racemes arranged in fascicles on cushions at nodes of older branches; bracts small. Male flowers: 5- or 6-merous; calyx cup-shaped, shortly toothed; petals valvate, coiled outwards before anthesis; stamens with filiform filaments +/- as long as linear anthers; disc present or absent. Female flowers similar to male ones but disc always absent; ovary 1-locular, oblong-ovate, stigma sessile, discoid. Fruit an ellipsoid, +/- flattened drupe; endocarp crustaceous, verrucose to smooth inside. Seed often pitted; endosperm markedly mottled.

Trees, often very tall; young trees armed with spines up to 100 mm long. Leaves coriaceous; stipules usually longer than 50 mm, falcate. Flowers bisexual. Sepals free, ovate. Petals elliptic, 2 or 3 times as long as calyx. Stamens (9)10, antepetalous ones shorter than antesepalous ones; pollen with polar triangle. Ovary (4)5-locular, slightly sunk into fleshy disc. Fruit a depressed, hard, +/- distinctly (4)5-lobed drupe containing (4)5 hard, 1-seeded pyrenes, irregularly shaped with processes, free or centripetally fused. Seeds: endosperm copious.

Perennial herbs or subshrubs; stems quadrangular to subterete. Leaves petiolate, thin, crenate. Inflorescences of small flowers in dense, terminal or lateral spike-like panicles; bracts ovate, sessile, membranous, ciliate, much smaller than leaves, persistent. Calyx: tube subcylindric to funnel-shaped, 10-nerved; teeth 5, subequal, herbaceous, not rigid. Corolla: tube funnel-shaped to cylindric; limb bilabiate, upper lip short, curved, lower lip longer, deflexed, 3-lobed. Stamens 4, didynamous, curved, lowest pair the longest; anther thecae distinct or confluent. Style bifid at apex. Nutlets obovoid, reticulate, scaly at apex.

Perennial herbs with a woody rootstock or subshrubs, glandular pubescent; stem erect to ascending, quadrangular at least in younger parts. Leaves opposite or 3- or 4-nate, sessile or shortly petiolate. Inflorescences simple, terminal or axillary racemes with flowers arranged in 2-4-flowered verticils; flowers pedicellate. Calyx 2-lipped, shortly tubular, small and semi-erect during flowering, accrescent and declinate in fruit; upper lip broad, ovate, shortly decurrent, lower lip 2- or 4-lobed, lobes deltoid to subulate. Corolla 2-lipped; tube straight, not or only slightly exserted from calyx tube; upper lip 4-lobed, lower lip horizontal or deflexed, slightly concave, +/- as long as upper one; bracts subtending a single flower. Stamens 4, declinate, but posterior 2 sterile, arising near midpoint of corolla; anterior 2 fertile, arising near corolla throat; filaments free; anthers dorsifixed, synthecate, held within basal part of corolla lip. Ovary 4-lobed; style curved, 2-lobed at apex. Nutlets basifixed, surrounded by a 4-lobed disc.