Description:

• Perennials, usually with tuber-like stem base giving rise to erect or climbing branches, sometimes spinose; dioecious, rarely monoecious
• Leaves simple or digitately compound, with 1 or 2 glands at apex of petiole, sometimes with glands on underside of leaf; stipules acicular
• Flowers unisexual, solitary or clustered or in cymes; sometimes peduncle ending in a tendril; corona a ring of hair-like processes, sometimes partly membranous, or a laciniate rim or 0
• Male flowers: receptacle/hypanthium usually narrowly cylindric or cup- to saucer-shaped; sepals (4)5(6); lobes usually longer than tube; petals (4)5(6), arising in calyx tube or in sinuses, usually shorter than calyx lobes; glands 5 or 0; stamens free or connate, arising from calyx tube or centre of receptacle, usually shorter than petals; rudimentary ovary usually present
• Female flowers: receptacle funnel-shaped; calyx lobed or segmented; petals 5 arising in calyx tube; glands present or 0; staminodes present, connate at base; ovary sessile or stipitate, usually ovoid, with several ovules on 3(-5) parietal placentas; style short or 0, 3(4)-branched; stigmas usually fleshy, papillate
• Fruit a stipitate, 3(-5)-valved capsule; pericarp coriaceous to rather fleshy and hence fruit berry-like, reddish, yellowish, or brownish, sometimes as large as a hen's egg
• Seeds usually compressed, with crustaceous, pitted testa
• x = 6 (high polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Adenia Forssk.
  • Forsskål: 77 (1775)
  • Liebenberg: 513 (1939)
  • De Wilde: 1 (1971)
  • De Wilde: 106 (1976)
• Modecca Lam.
  • Lamarck: 208 (1979)
  • Harvey: 499 (1862)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species 93, fairly cosmopolitan in tropical countries
• Southern Africa: Species 10, widespread, except in Western Cape