Small to medium-sized trees, branching rachitic, crown open. Leaves simple or 3-foliolate, borne on thick twigs in alternate fascicles resulting from the condensation of short-shoots. Inflorescence of 1-2 cauliflorous flowers arising from nodes on the trunk and older branches. Flowers with the calyx large, usually bilabiately split; corolla off-white, usually with maroon penciling, espe-cially on lobes and on the tube inside, the lobes deltoid, acuminate; stamens subexserted, the anthers glabrous, the thecae thick, somewhat divergent; pollen grains single, 3-colpate, the exine microreticulate; ovary ovoid-elliptic, lepidote, 1-locular, the ovules multi-seriate on 4 parietal placentae. Fruit a pepo or cala-bash, large, more or less spherical, indehiscent with a hard woody shell, pulpy inside; seeds small, less than 8 mm long and 9 mm wide, flat, not winged, embedded in the pulp.
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