Prostrate or scandent herbs with tuberous rootstock. Leaves simple, petiolate. Tendrils simple or 2-fid. Inflorescence few to many in axillary racemes or fascicles, usually pedunculate; flowers small, yellowish; receptacle-tube campanulate, lobes usually small; corolla-lobes 5, united below. Fruit solitary, small to medium-sized, succulent, cylindric-fusiform to globose, often rostrate, red, indehiscent or dehiscent by a longitudinal slit. Seeds asymmetrically ovoid or subglobose, small.
Worldwide: 25 species in Old World tropics, mostly Africa. Caprivi: 2 taxa. |
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