Cadaba aphylla (Thunb.) Wild

Leafless shrub, small tree or tangled bush, of, en virgate with perennial woody base, usually about 2 m high (3 m in ree form); branches somewhat weak and often fleshy, dark green often with purple bloom, glabrous. Leaves present only on seedlings and some very young branches, alternate, not crowded, subsessile, oblong, 10 mm long, 2 mm wide, glabrous, green, thin, drying leathery, lateral veins not conspicuous; petiole c. 1 mm long, glabrous. Flowers corymbose or racemose in appearance on side shoo s; pedicel glabrous or glandular, 8-11 mm long; buds ovate in outline. Sepals 4, free, decussate, subequal, 9-15 x 5-7 mm, yellowish-green, orange or dark red, glandular. Petals 0. Androphore 2-3 cm long, glandular-pubescent to glabrous, with basal nectary, not conspicuous in open flowers, often persisting on young fruits, cup-shaped with nvoluted mouth covered by a flap, neck absent. Stamens usually 8(6-13), arising from same level, filaments equal, often persisting on young fruit. Gynophore c. 10 mm long, glandular or glabrous. Ovary cylindric, with capitate, sessile stigma. Ovules numerous, attached on two placentas. Fruit cylindric, usually 5-9 cm long and 6-7 mm wide, verrucose, subtorulose, glabrous to glandula. Seeds embedde3d in powdery matrix, c. 4 mm long, reniform, with verrucose black to brown testa.