Description :

• Herbaceous or woody, perennial twiners
• Leaves entire, ovate to orbicular, cordate, usually large, minutely gland-dotted on lower surface
• Flowers axillary, pedunculate, solitary or in few- to many-flowered cymes; bracts small, deciduous
• Calyx 5-parted; sepals elliptic to orbicular, accrescent in fruit
• Corolla large, funnel-shaped with shallowly lobed limb
• Stamens arising near base of corolla tube; pollen globose, spinulose
• Disc annular, entire or somewhat 5-lobed
• Ovary 4-locular, with 1 ovule in each locule; style filiform; stigma biglobular
• Fruit enclosed in accrescent calyx, globose, winged, woody; walls between wings thin, rupturing irregularly and fruit becoming lantern-shaped
• Seeds dark brown or black, pubescent

Nomenclature:

• Stictocardia Hallier f.
  • Hallier: 159 (1893)
  • Verdcourt: 68 (1963)
  • Meeuse & Welman: 124 (2000)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global : Species ± 12, throughout the Old and New World tropics
• Southern Africa : Species 1: Stictocardia laxiflora (Baker) Hallier f., KwaZulu-Natal