Baissea A.Dc.

Climbing shrubs, lianas or rhizomatous creepers (not in our area) with white latex; tendrils, axillary glands and stipules absent. Leaves opposite, petiolate; petiole with colleters above, near base to halfway up; domatia usually in some vein axils. Inflorescences axillary and terminal, few to many-flowered cymes. Flowers 5-merous, fragrant or not; sepals imbricate, with 0–10 colleters at the base inside. Corolla tube with dense tufts of hairs alternating with the stamens inside, usually with scales or ridges above the insertion of the stamens; lobes contorted in bud, overlapping to the right. Stamens inserted in lower part of corolla tube; anthers connivent into a cone over the pistil head, coherent with the pistil head by a circular patch, the retinacle. Ovary semi-inferior, carpels two, connate at the extreme base, disk present, adnate to the ovary base; pistil head with a nearly cylindrical basal part, adhering to the anthers, a slightly 5-winged central part and a bilobed stigmoid apex. Fruits of 2 pendulous, follicular mericarps, connate at the extreme base and sometimes at the apex, usually slightly constricted between the seeds; seeds with a deciduous apical coma directed towards the apex of the mericarp.