Menispermaceae

Abstract

Twining or rarely erect shrubs or small trees. Leaves petiolate, exstipulate, usually simple, entire or lobed. Inflorescences racemes, panicles, sometimes cymose heads, many-flowered, rarely solitary or paired, axillary or borne on leafless twigs, often less ramified in female specimens, dioecious, small, regular, rarely slightly irregular. Male flowers: sepals 3 to 12 or more, usually in whorls of 3, rarely 1, free or slightly connate, imbricate or valvate. Petals 6 to 1 or absent, free or connate, usually imbricate. Stamens 3 to 6 or more, rarely 2, free or united. Female flowers: sepals and petals generally as in male flowers, sometimes less numerous. Staminodes present or absent. Carpels 3, 6, or more, free, rarely 1. Ovules 2, only 1 developing to seed, attached to the ventral suture. Fruits 1-seeded drupes. Exocarp subcoriaceous or membraneous; mesocarp ± fleshy or fibrous; endocarp woody or bony, outside rugose, tuberculate, echinate, or ridged, often with an intrusion of the placenta (condyle). Embryo straight or curved. Endosperm absent or present, ruminate or not. Cotyledons flat or ± terete, foliaceous or fleshy, divaricate or appressed.