Description:

• Twining lianas, sometimes rambling shrubs or perennial herbs, rarely erect
• Leaves simple, sometimes subpeltate, ovate or cordate, entire or angular
• Inflorescences axillary, with male flowers in paniculate cymes; female flowers in corymbose cymules which are either solitary or clustered or arranged in ± false racemes, less developed than male flowers
• Male flowers: sepals (3)4(5), obovate, often spreading, mostly dorsally pilose; petals 2-4, connate into a cup- or saucer-shaped corolla; stamens connate into a 4-10-locular synandrium, expanded and peltate above; anthers sessile, in a marginal ring on disc of staminal column, with transverse dehiscence
• Female flowers: sepal 1, rarely more, obovate, dorsally pilose; petal l, rarely 2 or 3, smaller than sepal and alternating with sepals, both often deciduous; staminodes 0; carpel 1, ± villous; stigma 3-fid
• Drupe subglobose, often pilose, bent so that apex with stigma approaches pedicel; endocarp bony, horseshoe-shaped, with 1 dorsal ridge, sides with small transverse often verrucose ribs; condyle narrowly obovate
• Seed with sparse endosperm; embryo curved; cotyledons appressed
• x = 12

Nomenclature:

• Cissampelos L.
  • Linnaeus: 1031 (1753) in part
  • Linnaeus: 455 (1754) in part
  • Jussieu: 285 (1789)
  • Candolle: 531 (1817) in part
  • Candolle: 100 (1824) in part
  • Harvey: 10 (1860) in part
  • Bentham: 37 (1862) in part
  • Miers: 128 (1866)
  • Oliver: 45 (1868)
  • Miers: 127 (1871)
  • Baillon: 41 (1872)
  • Prantl: 84 (1891)
  • Engler: 394 (1899)
  • Diels: 283 (1910)
  • Troupin: 137 (1955)
  • Troupin: 23 (1956)
  • Troupin: 165 (1960)
  • Troupin: 262 (1962)
  • Forman: 355 (1968)
  • Friedrich-Holzhammer: 3 (1968)
  • Troupin & Gonçalves: 18 (1973)
  • Benvenuto: 63 (1974)
  • Rhodes: 415 (1975)
  • Kessler: 416 (1993)
  • Thulin: 28 (1993)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 20, North and South America, Asia, tropical and southern Africa as well as Madagascar
• Southern Africa: Species 4, fairly widespread (except Free State and Lesotho); in forest, scrub and deciduous bushland