Home
Flowers (1)3–?, usually functionally unisexual, in axillary pedunculate or subsessile fascicles or pseudumbels with 2–4 condensed monochasial branches; buds 1–1·5 mm. long, globose to shortly cylindric; peduncle 1–5 mm. long, ± slender; pedicels 2–6 mm. long, smooth, articulated at the base.
Shrub, often with climbing branches, or liane, 1–6(40) m. high, with latex, glabrous; stems flattened, with paired raised lines, pale green and smooth at first, becoming terete or angular (climbing shoots), deep reddish-purple with numerous small whitish scarcely prominent lenticels.
Stamens 3, with filaments slender or slightly wider at the base, longer than the style (male) or as long (hermaphrodite) or much shorter (female); anthers ± coherent round the stigma in male forms, small and often apiculate in male forms, dehiscing by 2 longitudinal clefts.
Ovary ovoid-3-gonous, with style up to 1 mm. long, 1/3 as long as the stamens; stigma 3-lobed (female and hermaphrodite forms) or punctiform (male forms); ovules 2 per loculus.
Sepals with pale margin, c. 0·5 mm. long, broadly ovate to semicircular, rounded, ± unequal, free, with margin ciliolate to denticulate or rarely subentire.
Fruit orange to red, globose, or dorsiventrally compressed, 1–2·5 cm. in diam., smooth or rugulose, 1–2-seeded.
Petals greenish yellow to orange-yellow, 1–2 mm. long, ovate to oblong, sessile, rounded, entire.
Disk annular, flat, surrounding the ovary.
A creeping shrub or creeper.
