Helinus E.Mey. ex Endl.

Climbing shrubs or woody vines or lianes (or seeming to be mere shrubs but not in East Africa). Tendrils present (or absent but not in East Africa), circinnate, axillary. Leaves alternate, petiolate, the uppermost ones (subtending umbels) sometimes much reduced and bract-like; blades ovate or lanceolate, entire, at base rounded or cordate, at apex acute or rounded, essentially penninerved or vaguely 3–5-nerved at base. Stipules linear, caducous. Umbels axillary, (1–)3–12-flowered, only 1 flower or rarely 2 flowers per umbel setting fruit; peduncles usually rather slender and elongate, sometimes surpassing the subtending leaf; pedicels short to elongate, filiform. Flowers 5-merous, perfect, epigynous at all stages. Cup broadly campanulate. Sepals deltoid, often with very thin white margins. Petals oblanceolate and somewhat concave toward the distal end, yellowish or greenish white, arcuate ascending at anthesis. Stamens as long as petals. Disk massive, thickened around and adherent to the ovary. Ovary inferior at all stages of development, 3-celled (reportedly sometimes 2-celled but not in East Africa). Style 3-lobed about half the length. Fruit a schizocarpous capsule with a thinly coriaceous rind (mesocarp and other exterior tissues) which eventually dries; endocarp thin, crustaceous, schizocarpous, separating into 3 mericarps each of which releases its seed by a sudden opening of the ventral suture.