Rutidea Dc.

Scandent shrubs, often with hairy stems. Leaves petiolate; domatia absent or present as hairy tufts in the axils of the lateral and sometimes tertiary nerves beneath (referred to in text as domatial hairy tufts); bacterial nodules absent; stipules, with 3–15 fimbriae or with a single lobe. Flowers hermaphrodite, 4–5(–6)-merous, sessile or pedicellate in pyramidal to racemiform or hemispherical to flat-topped panicles, terminal on the main or short lateral branches, sessile to pedunculate (the presence of rudimentary leaves frequently renders this character ambiguous); bracts and bracteoles present, either conspicuous and exceeding the calyx or inconspicuous. Calyx-tube ovoid to campanulate; limb-tube usually short, slightly wider than the tube, bearing 4–5(–6) ovate, subulate, filiform to linear or triangular lobes. Corolla white or cream, usually small, salver-shaped; tube cylindrical to funnel-shaped, glabrous to sparsely pubescent inside; lobes 4–5(–6), contorted in bud, spreading or reflexed. Stamens attached at the mouth of the tube, exserted, or at least partly so; filaments short; anthers attached near the base or occasionally near the middle, usually shortly apiculate. Disc fleshy, glabrous. Ovary 2(–3)-locular (or incompletely so); ovules solitary, inserted on a small fleshy placenta ascending from the base of the ovary; style slender, greatly or less often scarcely exceeding the corolla-tube, glabrous or nearly so or less often densely pubescent just above the base; stigma exserted or occasionally not fully exserted, fusiform, clavate or broadly elliptic to globose, entire or rarely 2–3-lobed. Fruit frequently orange to red, drupaceous, spherical, somewhat fleshy with a chartaceous endocarp, 1-locular; calyx-limb persistent or less often deciduous. Seed 1, globose, filling the cell, hilum basal, irregular; testa thin, reticulate; albumen horny, deeply ruminate; embryo curved.