Description: Monoecious climbing or trailing annual herbs, bristly or pubescent with glandular hairs. Tendrils 2–5-branched.
Leaves simple, palmately lobed.
Flowers small. Male flowers in racemes, often head-like; female flowers in heads or solitary. Hypanthium bell-shaped. Corolla deeply 3–5-lobed, white or greenish. Stamens 2–5; filaments united in a column, anthers fused into a head. Female flowers without staminodes. Ovary ovoid; ovule solitary.
Fruit ovoid, mostly bristly, 1-seeded.
Distribution and occurrence: World: 50 species, North & South America, Hawaiian Is., Pacific. Australia: 1 species (native).
Text by G. J. Harden
Taxon concept:
| One species in NSW: Sicyos australis |
|
