Description :

• Straggling or climbing shrubs, usually fetid
• Leaves opposite or in whorls of 3, petiolate, ± cordate, thin; stipules intrapetiolar, ovate to narrowly triangular, deciduous
• Flowers usually pedicellate, in axillary and terminal pedunculate clusters, or solitary
• Calyx 5-lobed; lobes subulate, elongate, recurving, persistent; tube campanulate or ovoid
• Corolla white, salver-shaped, aestivation valvate; tube cylindric, longer than calyx, at length splitting at base
• Stamens 5, arising in or near mouth of corolla tube; filaments short
• Disc small
• Ovary 2- or 3-locular, with a solitary, erect ovule in each locule; style filiform; stigma lobes 2 or 3, filiform, included or exserted
• Fruit dorsally compressed or 3-sided; epicarp membranous, shiny, bursting in a valvate manner from base; pyrenes 2 or 3, compressed
• Seeds same shape as pyrenes and intimately associated with them
• x = 11 (aneuploids, high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Paederia L.
  • Linnaeus: 7 (1767) name conserved
  • Verdcourt: 175 (1976)
  • Puff: 1 (1986)
  • Puff: 63 (1989)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 20, tropical regions
• Southern Africa : Species 1: Paederia bojeriana (A.Rich.) Drake subsp. foetens (Hiern) Verdc., Northern Province