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Shrubs, trees, or lianas, armed or unarmed. If lianas then with axillary simple or double curled tendrils, sometimes with axillary thorns. Stipules often reduced to a straight ciliate ridge connecting petiole bases. Leaves petiolate to sometimes subsessile; leaf blade margin entire, basal veins 3--7, secondary veins 1--3 distinct pairs from or near base curved along margin in species represented. Inflorescences terminal and/or axillary, thyrsoid; bracts scalelike to sepal-like. Flowers pedicellate or sessile, 4-or 5-merous. Corolla rotate to salverform; lobes valvate in bud, spreading to reflexed when open. Stamens inserted at corolla throat to middle of corolla tube, exserted to included; filaments long to short, mostly filiform; anthers orbicular to narrowly oblong, base mostly slightly 2-cleft, introrse, 2-locular and separate. Ovary (1-or)2-locular, with few to many ovules per locule. Style cylindrical; stigma capitate or faintly 2-cleft. Berries orange or red when ripe in species represented, usually globose to ellipsoid, thin-to thick-walled, outside smooth to minutely warty, glabrous; pulp fleshy, usually orange; 1--15-seeded. Seeds ± flattened to saucer-shaped, circular to elliptic in outline; seed coat sericeous, felty, or scabrous and glabrous; embryo spatulate; endosperm horny; cotyledon leaflike.
Lianas or scandent shrubs, sometimes of considerable length, typically with coiled tendrils, sometimes also with spines, the branches opposite. Leaves op-posite, sessile or petiolate, the petioles connected by stipular lines (well-developed stipules usually not present); blades of various shapes, simple, entire, typically 3-5-plinerved, coriaceous or membranous. Inflorescences terminal or axillary or both, basically cymose. Flowers I, 5-merous or less frequently 4-merous, the pedicels 0-5 mm long; calyx-lobes exceeding the calyx-tube or sometimes equal to it, often imbricate basally, broadly ovate to linear; corolla yellow to pale green or white, salverform to virtually rotate, often carnosulous, the tube 0.1-2.5 cm long, the lobes valvate in bud, shorter than or equal to or longer than the corolla-tube, glabrous to very conspicuously pubescent internally; anthers included or exserted, glabrous or pilose, the filaments usually attached to the corolla-tube throughout most of their length; ovary subglobose or ovoid, 2-locular or sometimes 1-locular or incompletely 2-locular, the style unbranched, the stigma small, capitate, slightly 2-lobed. Fruit a berry, ovoid or globose, 1-9 cm in diameter, the shell very hard to somewhat fleshy, the pulp soft; seeds one to many, 0.5-2.5 cm long.
Woody climbers, shrubs or trees, usually with axillary, simple or double tendrils. Leaves petiolate, mostly inserted on enlarged nodes, 3–7-plinerved; stipules reduced to a rim connecting leaf-bases. Inflorescence of terminal and/or axillary many-branched cymes, frequently with elaborations. Flowers 5-merous or (not in Australia) 4-merous. Calyx free or connate in lower half, usually glabrous inside; lobes ciliate. Corolla thin at base, thickened towards lobes; lobes valvate in bud, spreading to reflexed; outer surface densely papillose (in Australia); inner surface glabrous or pubescent at throat, glabrous at base. Anthers basifixed, cordate to occasionally distally sagittate. Ovary superior, 2-(rarely 1)-locular; ovules 2– c. 50; style persistent. Fruit berry-like; calyx persistent.
Trees or shrubs, sometimes scrambling or climbing with spines or hooked tendrils. Leaves decussate, entire, 3–7-nerved from near the base; stipules absent or represented by an interpetiolar ridge. Cymes axillary or terminal, simple or panicled. Calyx 4-or 5-lobed, sometimes very deeply. Corolla campanulate or salver-shaped; lobes 4 or 5, valvate in the bud. Stamens 4 or 5; filaments short but anthers usually exserted. Ovary 2-locular; style moderately long, undivided; stigma usually capitate; ovules few to many. Fruit a drupe or a berry with a hard rind. Seeds few to numerous, flattened or globose; endosperm copious and hard; embryo small.
Leaves opposite, sometimes decussate, or on the main axis sometimes ternate, those of a pair or whorl equal or subequal, petiolate or sometimes subsessile, mostly inserted on distinct leaf–cushions; blade variously shaped, orbicular to narrowly elliptic, mostly coriaceous, in the shade thinner, often larger, and more acute at the apex, entire; with 1–2(3) pairs of distinct secondary veins from or from above the base curved along the margin, usually not fully reaching the apex, anastomosing with the other veins or less often pinnately veined.
Corolla rotate to salver–shaped, white to yellowish, greenish, pale green, or rarely orange or ochraceous, thin at the base, always more or less thickened towards the lobes, on both sides variously hairy, papillose, or glabrous, but inside at the base always glabrous, sometimes with a corona at the mouth; lobes valvate in the bud, triangular to oblong, acute or subacute, entire, erect to recurved.
Fruit a berry, 1–2–celled, globose or nearly so, mostly yellow to red, less often green when mature, sometimes blue–black (S. potatorum), immature often glaucous, glabrous, subtended by the persisting calyx, 0·8–18 cm. in diameter, 1–45–seeded.
Stamens exserted or included, inserted at the mouth of or in the corolla tube; filaments glabrous or sometimes hairy; anthers introrse, orbicular to narrowly oblong, cordate, deeply so, or less often sagittate at the base.
Branches armed with axillary or sometimes terminal simple straight or slightly recurved spines, unarmed, often lenticellate, rarely corky; branchlets terete, quadrangular, sometimes sulcate, especially when dry.
Calyx: sepals green or coloured approximately like the corolla, free or connate up to one–half of their length, equal, subequal, or sometimes unequal, imbricate, orbicular to linear, outside hairy or glabrous.
Lianas with curled tendrils, solitary or arranged in 1–3 pairs above each other on short branches, in the axils of small bracts or — only if solitary — sometimes in the axils of ordinary leaves.
Trees: usually less than 10 m. high (savanna spp.), 10–35(40) m. (forest spp.); trunk 10–100 cm. in diam.; without tendrils, often with arching branches (iS. usambarensis, S. xantha).
Wood mostly hard, usually with bark–islets; bark mostly thin, smooth or less often rough, in lianas often with large lenticels, sometimes thick and corky (S. cocculoides).
Inflorescence terminal, axillary, or both, thyrsoid, 1–many–flowered, shorter or longer than the leaves, lax or congested, sometimes sessile.
Testa thick and osseous to very thin and membranaceous, rough and scabrid–pubescent (only when thick) or smooth and sericeous to glabrous.
Pistil: ovary 2– or rarely 1–celled (S. mellodora, S. spinosa); stigma capitate, less often obscurely bilobed, or occasionally conical.
Pulp juicy, fleshy, often edible (S. cocculoides, S. madagascariensis, S. pungens, S. spinosa, and also in some small–fruited species).
In a one–celled ovary one basal placenta which is mostly globose, with few (S. mellodora) or many ovules (S. spinosa).
In each cell of a 2–celled ovary one axial placenta with 2 to about 50 ovules, attached to the middle of the septum.
Wall thin and soft in small fruits, thicker and brittle in (mature) larger (very hard in nearly mature!!).
Sometimes some colleters above the bracts, on the base of the sepals, and near the base of the petioles.
Stipules mostly reduced to an often ciliate and straight rim connecting the petiole–bases.
Seeds large, 0·5–3(5) cm. long, variably shaped, generally disc–shaped to subglobose.
Flowers 4–5–merous, actinomorphic or with only sepals unequal.
Erect or climbing shrubs, lianas, or trees.
Endosperm horny, slightly diaphanous.
