Description :

• Broad-topped, sticky-pubescent, annual herbs with stout, branched stems
• Leaves large, opposite, long-petiolate, broadly ovate, mature ones 5-lobed, base cordate, margin irregularly and shallowly toothed, glandular-pubescent, veins digitate at base, otherwise pinnate
• Flowers large, in few-flowered, loose, axillary racemes, lilac to purple
• Calyx spathe-like, with 5 ± connate, unequal lobes
• Corolla campanulate, obscurely 2-lipped, limb short, flaring
• Stamens didynamous, included; staminodes 0
• Nectary regular
• Ovary ovate, tapering into persistent style, 2-carpellate but 1-locular, divided by 2 ± T-shaped intrusions or septa into 5 chambers, 4 peripheral and 1 central; placentation parietal with several ovules borne on peripheral edges of septa; stigma broader than style, 2-lobed
• Fruit a cylindric-ovoid, 2-valved capsule, tapering into a long, curved beak which splits, forming 2 large, opposed, hook-like appendages when dry, viscid-tomentose, with deciduous, fleshy pericarp and woody endocarp crested longitudinally on posterior side
• Seeds obovate, crinkled, without wings
• x = 15

Nomenclature:

• *Proboscidea Schmidel
  • Schmidel: 49 (1763)
  • Stapf: 265 (1897)
  • Bailey: 909 (1949)
  • Lawrence: 126, t. 40 (1957)
  • Ihlenfeldt: 43, t. 11 (1967)
  • Bailey & Bailey: 912 (1977)
  • Wells et al.: 654 (1986) as Martynia

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 9, warm Americas
• Southern Africa : Species 1, introduced: * Proboscidea fragrans (Lindl.) Decne., from Mexico, ornamental and cultivated for fruit, sporadic as garden escape, and perhaps naturalised