Description:

• Woody, twining vines or lianas, sometimes with tendrils, or rarely erect shrubs, rarely herbaceous; wood in cross section showing broad, medullary rays; plants dioecious
• Leaves alternate, usually simple, sometimes peltate, rarely trifoliolate, petiolate; stipules 0
• Inflorescences panicles, racemes, sometimes cymose heads, many-flowered, rarely solitary or paired, axillary or borne on leafless twigs, often less ramified in female specimens
• Flowers unisexual, regular, rarely slightly irregular, usually small and inconspicuous, rarely deeply coloured
• Male flowers: sepals (1)3-12 or more, usually in whorls of 3, rarely 1, free or slightly connate, imbricate or valvate; petals (0)1-6, free or connate, usually imbricate; stamens (2)3-6 or more, free or variously connate; anthers dehiscing by longitudinal, rarely by transverse, slits
• Female flowers similar to male, sometimes less numerous; staminodes present or 0; carpels 1, 3-6 or more, free; ovules 2 in each carpel, attached to ventral suture, soon reduced to 1 by abortion; stigma sessile on a very short style
• Fruit a 1-seeded drupe with scar of style subterminal or near base by eccentric growth; exocarp subcoriaceous or membranous; mesocarp ± fleshy or fibrous; endocarp woody or bony, outside rugose, tuberculate, echinate, or ridged, often with an intrusion of the placenta (condyle)
• Seed often curved and horseshoe-shaped; endosperm 0 or present, ruminate or not

Nomenclature:

• Menispermaceae
  • Jussieu: 284 (1789)
  • Candolle: 95 (1824)
  • Bentham: 30 (1862)
  • Miers: 1 (1871)
  • Baillon: 1 (1874)
  • Prantl: 78 (1891)
  • Troupin: 1 (1962)
  • Kessler: 402 (1993)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Genera ± 71; species ± 450, widespread in tropical and subtropical lowlands of the Old and New World, with relatively few species in temperate regions
• Southern Africa: Genera 7, species 13

References:

• BAILLON, H.E. 1874. Menispermaceae. The natural history of plants 3. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
• BENTHAM, G. 1862. Menispermaceae. In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker, Genera plantarum 1. Lovell Reeve & Co., London
• BOTHA, D.J. 1980. The endocarp of the southern African Menispermaceae. Journal of South African Botany 46
• CANDOLLE, A.-P. DE. 1824. Menispermaceae. Prodromus 1. Treuttel & Würtz, Paris
• JUSSIEU, A.L. DE. 1789. Menisperma, les Ménispermes. Genera plantarum secundum ordines naturales disposita. Herissant & Barrois, Paris
• KESSLER, P.J.A. 1993. Menispermaceae. In K. Kubitzki, J.G. Rohwer & V. Bittrich, The families and genera of vascular plants - dicotyledons 2. Springer-Verlag, Berlin
• MIERS, J. 1871. A complete monograph of the Menispermaceae. Contributions to Botany 3(1). Williams & Norgate, London
• PRANTL, K. 1891. Menispermaceae. Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien 3,2
• TROUPIN, G. 1962. Monographie des Menispermaceae africaines. Académie Royale des Sciences d'Outre-Mer, Classe des sciences naturelles et médicales mémoires 13

Resources:

• Key to Menispermaceae genera
• Key to Menispermaceae genera based on structure of endocarp

• Menispermaceae genera: