Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Woody vines, creeping or climbing by adventitious roots, secretory canals present in most parts.

Stems:

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Petioles base often broad and sheathing the stem. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in simple terminal umbels or racemes of umbellules. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Pedicels often jointed below the ovary. Calyx a truncate rim or 5-toothed. Corolla of 5 petals, valvate. Stamens 5; alternate with the petals, distinct, inserted at the edge of the epigynous nectary disk. Ovary inferior, 5-carpellate, surmounted by a convex disk; carpels connate (rarely pseudomonomerous), with as many cells; ovules pendulous, 2 per cell, 1 abortive; styles as many as carpels, connate into a short stylopodium; stigmas sessile.

Fruit: Drupes dark purple at maturity; exocarp fleshy; pyrenes cartilaginous or membranous; often laterally compressed. Seeds 3–5 per fruit.

Ploidy:

Habitat:

Elevation Range: