Herbaceous vines; branchlets angled, nodes without interpetiolar glandular fields; pseudostipules lacking. Leaves opposite, 2-3-ternate, often with a trifid, dichotomously branching tendril, the leaflets serrate and often more or less subdivided. Inflorescence a terminal spike-like raceme, the upper flowers sterile and caducous. Flowers with the calyx red, bilobed, caducous; corolla tubular, bilabiate, shorter than the calyx, pubescent at least toward the tip; stamens 4, staminode absent, the anthers glabrous; pollen grains single, 3-colpate, the exine finely granular; ovary ovoid, densely short-echinate; disc annular. Fruit an uncompressed, ovoid, septicidally dehiscing capsule, usually not splitting to the base, densely echinate with uncate spines; seeds small, thin, with a narrow, hyaline-membranaceous wing.
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