Petiveria Plum. ex L.

Erect undershrubs; stipules subaxillary, subulate, minute. Leaves on short or medium-sized petioles, ovate-elliptic-lanceolate, smelling of onions when bruised. Flowers ☿, zygomorphic, small. Racemes terminal and axillary, erect or nodding at the top. Pedicels very short, bearing 2 minute bracteoles. Tepals 4, oblong-linear, during anthesis spreading and yellowish white, afterwards erect, accrescent, turning green, indurating. Stamens 4-8 on the base of the perianth and shorter than this, unequal; anthers dorsifixed, linear, with a deeply bifid apex and a slightly 2-lobed base. Ovary unicarpellate, oblong, densely pubescent, on the top with 4 or 6 deflexed bristles which afterwards change into short, sharp spines, 1-celled. Style absent; stigma lateral on the ventral upper half of the ovary, consisting of many longish hairs. Fruit exserted from the enclosing perianth, narrowly cuneiform, compressed, dry, indehiscent; pericarp coriaceous, adhering to the seed. Seed linear.