Description:

• Monoecious, rarely dioecious, scandent or prostrate, perennial herbs, scabrid or glabrous, sometimes subfleshy and with tuberous rootstock
• Leaves entire to lobed or partite
• Tendrils simple, rarely bifid
• Male flowers racemose or subcorymbose: calyx 5-lobed, tube campanulate, pilose within, lobes linear-lanceolate, ovate-oblong or subulate, with few glandular hairs; corolla 5-partite, lobes ovate or oblong-linear, often pubescent or glandular-hairy; stamens 3(4 or 5) arising from receptacle tube, filaments free, ± as long as anthers, when 3 present then 1 anther 1-thecous and 2 anthers 2-thecous, when 5 stamens present then all anthers 1-thecous, thecae straight or ± curved, connective often produced and often bifid or bipartite; pistil 0, or gland-like
• Female flowers solitary or clustered, shortly pedicelled: calyx and corolla as in male; staminodes 0-5 often 3; ovary ovoid or elliptic, sometimes beaked, with 2 or 3 placentas and few, rarely many ovules, sometimes hairy, with long, glandular hairs, style columnar, not or only slightly surrounded by disc at base, stigmas 2 or 3, broad or narrow, each stigma often shortly bilobed
• Fruit a berry, ovoid, often beaked, few- to many-seeded
• Seeds often globose with a margin and crustaceous, punctate or slightly pustulate or smooth; cotyledons thick, fleshy
• x = 12, 13 (1 report)

Nomenclature:

• Kedrostis Medik.
  • Medikus: 69 (1791)
  • Meeuse: 24 (1962)
  • Jeffrey: 484 (1978)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 25, Old World tropics, mostly Africa
• Southern Africa: Species 9, all regions