S. NAZIMUDDIN AND S. SHAHARYAR H. NAQVI
Staphylosyce Hook. f.
Climbers and trailers, stem glabrous or scabrous, dioecious. Tendrils simple, rarely bifid. Leaves simple, petiolate, usually very variable in shape, 5-angular or 5-lobed, deltoid or rounded-cordate, glabrous or punctate on upper surface, rarely glandular beneath. Flowers medium to large, white or brownish-yellow, often green-veined; male: solitary, clustered or shortly racemose, rarely in short spikes. Calyx tube short, campanulate or turbinate, teeth 5; corolla large campanulate, shortly or acutely 5-lobed. Stamens 3, inserted on the base of the calyx tube, filaments connate into a central column, rarely free; pistillode absent; female: solitary, rarely racemose; calyx and corolla as in male; stami-nodes 3, oblong or subulate; ovary ovoid, oblong to linear, triplacentiferous, smooth, style slender, stigmas 3. Fruit small to moderately large, globose to elongate, indehiscent, many seeded. Seeds small, ± compressed, ovate in outline, testa fibrillose.
A genus of c. 30 species of Tropical and South Africa, one also in Tropical India and Malaysia and introduced into the New World.