Description: Monoecious scabrid herbs; stems annual, from a perennial rootstock. Tendrils simple.
Leaves petiolate; lamina more or less ovate, cordate, acute, unlobed or shallowly 3-, 5- or 7-lobed, dentate or serrate.
Inflorescences of solitary flowers or fascicles, androgynous or unisexual. Flowers pedicellate, small, 3–15 mm diam.; corolla yellow-green or yellow. Male flowers, calyx of 5 small, narrow-triangular sepals inserted on the hypanthium rim; corolla 5-lobed; lobes ovate, alternating with sepals; stamens 3, inserted about the middle of the hypanthium, two 2-locular, one 1-locular; filaments short; anthers dorsifixed, curved, dehiscing longitudinally. Female flower perianth similar to males; staminodes 3, inserted about the middle of the hypanthium; ovary subglobose or ellipsoidal; ovules many; style very short or stigma subsessile; stigma 2- or 5-lobed, the stigmatic lobes capitate or linear, papillose.
Fruit a globose or ellipsoidal, few to many-seeded berry, green to yellow. Seeds ovate, compressed, margins sometimes thickened, smooth, pale.
Flowering: Endemic to Australia, widespread through out arid and semiarid parts of the mainland states.
Distribution and occurrence:
Text by Louisa Murray
Taxon concept: Schaefer, H.,Telford, R.H and Renner, S.S. (2008) Systematic Botany, 33(1): pp. 125-132
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