Description:

• Monoecious, rarely dioecious, scandent or prostrate herbs
• Leaves entire, lobed or palmately 3-9-foliolate
• Tendrils simple or bifid
• Male flowers solitary, corymbose, subumbellate or racemose, often with a conspicuous, barren bract at apex of pedicel: calyx with variably shaped tube and lobes; stamens (2)3(5), filaments free or somewhat cohering, broadly linear, anthers at first cohering, with 1 anther 1-thecous and others 2-thecous, thecae bent, connective bilobed, not produced at apex; pistil 0, rudimentary, or glandular
• Female flowers solitary: calyx and corolla as in male; staminodes 0 or represented by 3 glands at base of style; ovary oblong or fusiform, with 3 placentas and many ovules, sometimes echinate, style slender, stigmas 3, entire or bifid
• Fruit fusiform or cylindric, fleshy, indehiscent or 3-valved, sometimes with short protuberances on margins, few- to many-seeded
• Seeds turgid or flattened, smooth or variously sculptured, with crustaceous testa; cotyledons elliptic
• x = 11 (7) (aneuploids, polyploidy)

Nomenclature:

• Momordica L.
  • Linnaeus: 1009 (1753)
  • Meeuse: 45 (1962)
  • Jeffrey: 419 (1978)
• Raphanocarpus Hook.f.
  • Hooker: 67 (1871).
• Raphanistrocarpus (Baill.) Pax
  • Pax: 25 (1889)

Distribution & Notes:

• Global: Species ± 40, Old World, mostly tropical Africa
• Southern Africa: Species 9, all regions, except Lesotho and Western Cape