APOCYNACEAE  

Shrubs or small trees, repeatedly dichotomously branched and with 2 inflorescences in forks when flowering; with white latex. Leaves opposite, those of a pair equal or unequal, shortly petiolate or sometimes sessile; petioles or leaf bases of a pair united at the base and forming a very short ocrea, with a single row of colleters in axils; lamina elliptic, narrowly elliptic, or narrowly obovate, cuneate, rounded or subcordate at base. Inflorescence pedunculate, corymbose, pendulous, lax; bracts caducous before flowers open. Flowers regular except for the slightly curved corolla tube. Calyx pale green, persistent, even under fruit. Corolla white, creamy, or pale yellow, with many red longitudinal lines at base of lobes and at apex of tube; tube longer than calyx; lobes spreading(?) or suberect, in bud overlapping to the left. Stamens included; anthers sessile, narrowly triangular, acuminate at sterile apex, sagittate at base, hirto-pubescent outside on connective and inside between tails, introrse. Ovary glabrous, broadly ovoid, composed of 2 free carpels, surrounded by an entire disc, which is united with distal sides of ovary; style only slightly widened at apex; clavuncula composed of an entire, thin, slightly recurved ring and a subglobose head, topped by 2 parallel, linear, erect stigma lobes; style and stigma remaining on ovary when corolla is shed. Fruit composed of 2 free carpels which usually both develop and which dehisce adaxially; wall soft, orange inside. Seeds in 2 irregular rows, surrounded by a darker orange pulpy aril, few, rather large, obliquely ellipsoid or ovoid; at hilar side with one deep groove to half their width, less deeply grooved at the other sides, minutely pustulate; endosperm copious, starchy, creamy, ruminate, surrounding the spathulate embryo.

Tall glabrous trees. Leaves in whorls of 3-6, more rarely opposite, with more than 25 pairs of lateral veins; stipules absent, but usually with many small colleters in a fringe or covering hollowed base of petiole. Flowers relatively small, usually in many-flowered, compound, terminal, umbelliform, corymbose or panicled inflorescences. Calyx small, divided almost to base; segments broadly ovate. Corolla salver-shaped; tube slender, cylindric, sparsely pubescent within, villous at mouth; lobes somewhat obliquely ovate, contorted, overlapping to right. Stamens in widened part of corolla tube; filaments filiform, short; anthers free from stigma, 2-lobed at base, polliniferous to base. Disc absent or obscurely annular. Ovary of 2 free carpels; style filiform, short; stigma with a ring of reflexed frills at base. Mericarps 2, follicular, cylindric, slender. Seeds oblong, compressed, with hairs all around edges, but chiefly at both ends.

Geophytic perennial herbs with grass-like habit and slender, flexuose stems and globose tuber. Leaves sessile, narrowly linear, subulate. Flowers in a terminal pseudo-umbel, on long erect pedicels. Sepals lanceolate, largely free, densely hairy. Petals ovate, twice as long as sepals, brown with white, membranous margin, glabrous. Corona simple, campanulate at base, ending in 5 white, ligulate-spathulate lobes almost twice as long as petals, and more conspicuous than petals, with margins involute at base, and with 2 wing-like excrescences inside margins near base forming a cup-like structure. Pollinia ovate, pellucid towards apex; caudicles short. Follicles always solitary, narrowly fusiform, erect at maturity.