Zehneria Endl.

Small to medium-sized climbers; stems herbaceous, sometimes becoming, when old, thickened, woody and rough-barked at the base, rarely all soon woody with smooth papery bark. Leaves simple, petiolate; blade ovate-cordate, triangular or hastate, often palmately lobed, rarely ± succulent. Tendrils simple. Flowers small, usually white becoming yellowish with age, monoecious or dioecious. Male flowers solitary, paired or few to many in sessile or pedunculate racemiform or subumbelliform clusters, pedicellate; receptacle-tube campanulate; lobes small, dentiform; petals small, united at the base; stamens (2–)3(–4), all 2-thecous, either with short arcuate thecae and rather long often hairy filaments inserted in the lower half of the tube, or subsessile on about the middle of the tube with straight subparallel thecae and apically produced connective; disk elevated, free from tube, prominent, very rarely absent. Female flowers solitary or in few-to many-flowered sessile or pedunculate shortly racemiform, umbelliform or rarely laxly racemiform clusters, shortly to fairly long pedicellate, sometimes coaxillary with ♂; ovary subglobose to fusiform, smooth, usually glabrous; ovules few to many, horizontal; perianth as in ♂ flower; staminodes 3, usually present; disk prominent, annular, free from receptacle-tube, surrounding base of style, rarely obscure and connate with tube; stigma (2–)3-lobed. Fruits solitary or clustered, globose to fusiform, small, baccate, red or rarely whitish, smooth, sometimes ± punctate when dry. Seeds small, elliptic to broadly ovate in outline, lenticular, compressed, with an obscure or sometimes distinct border, narrow or sometimes rather thick grooved edges and a smooth or rarely scrobiculate sometimes depressed convex disk. Fig. 21, p. 120.