Description :

• Monoecious or sometimes dioecious, rather small, annual or perennial climbers or trailers
• Leaves usually ± palmately lobed
• Tendrils simple
• Flowers small, yellow
• Male flowers solitary or, more often, in small fascicles, pedicellate; calyx: receptacle tube campanulate, lobes small; petals united below; stamens 3, two 2-thecous, one 1-thecous, shortly arising from tube, connective shortly produced apically, thecae straight, subparallel, sometimes apically hooked; disc elevated, convex
• Female flowers solitary, pedicellate: perianth as in male flowers; staminodes, when present, 3; ovary smooth, hairy, ovules many, horizontal; disc surrounding base of style, stigma 3-lobed
• Fruit rather small, fleshy, hairy, sometimes scabrid, ellipsoid and sometimes beaked, or fusiform, indehiscent
• Seeds small, ovate or elliptic, compressed, lenticular

Nomenclature:

• Cucumella Chiov.
  • Chiovenda: 183 (1929)
  • Kirkbride: 161 (1994)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species 11, mostly Africa, also Asia
• Southern Africa : Species 4, Namibia, Northern Province, Mpumalanga