Schlechterina Harms

Low perennial climber or suberect shrublet, usually provided with tendrils, glabrous, growing from a perennial rootstock. Leaves simple, elliptic to linear, entire to deeply pinnately lobed, shortly petiolate, margin entire to dentate. Glands on petiole 0–1(–2) pairs at the top. Stipules small, caducous. Tendrils axillary. Inflorescences axillary, sessile or subsessile, few-flowered, often arranged on short-shoots from the supra-axillary bud; bracts and bracteoles small. Flowers hermaphrodite, whitish; stipe articulate to short pedicel. Hypanthium small, shallowly cup-shaped. Sepals 3–4, free, imbricate, elliptic to oblong. Petals 2–4, free, elliptic to oblong. Corona single, composed of threads connate at base into a low tube, inside set with additional hair-like appendages. Disk absent. Androgynophore short.. Stamens 6–8, connate at base into a shallow cup, often with small lobes (staminodes) on its margin between the filaments; anthers dorsifixed, versatile, ellipsoid-oblong, obtuse, 2-thecous. Ovary ellipsoid-oblong, on a short gynophore; placentas (3–)4, each with 3–8 ovules; style single; stigma single, flatfish, 3–4-lobed. Fruit a stipitate 3–4-valved capsule, ellipsoid-oblong, fusiform; valves coriaceous. Seeds flattened, ellipsoid, arillate; testa crustaceous, scrobiculate.