Helinus

Climbing shrubs with tendrils. Leaves alternate, petioled, more or less ovate-cordate; stipules linear, deciduous. Flowers in axillary, peduncled umbels. Calyx 5-lobed; tube campanulate; lobes slightly keeled on inner face. Petals 5, +/- as long as calyx lobes, cucullate, inserted on margin of disc. Disc epigynous, flat, completely filling the calyx tube. Stamens 5, equalling petals. Ovary inferior, 3-locular; style short, 3-fid. Fruit obovate-globose, areolate at apex, 3-coccous; cocci at length dehiscent, with a 3-partite, central axis. Seeds black, somewhat planoconvex, with keel on flat face.