Telfairia Hook.

Large lianes. Leaves pedately 3–7-foliolate; median leaflet largest. Tendrils proximally bifid. Probracts present. Flowers large, purplish, dioecious. Male flowers many, racemose; receptacle-tube short, broad; lobes toothed; petals 5, free, fringed; stamens 5 (all 2-thecous, 4 in two pairs with 1 single), free, or the paired stamens ± united, when completely so then stamens 3 (two 4-thecous, one 2-thecous); filaments inserted halfway up the tube; thecae straight or slightly arcuate. Female flowers solitary, larger than male; ovary ribbed; ovules many, horizontal; stigma 3-lobed. Fruit very large, fleshy, ribbed, many-seeded, dehiscing by 10 longitudinal valves. Seeds large, broadly ovate or suborbicular in outline, compressed, often enclosed in a fibrous sheath derived from the endocarp. Fig. 1.