Kadsura Juss.

Shrubs, climbing, usually glabrous; branchlets terete or subterete; bud scales papyraceous to coriaceous. Leaves alternate, entire or distantly serrate-dentate along margins, usually cuspidate or acuminate at apex, usually coriaceous, opaque to pellucid- glandular, pinnately nerved. Flowers solitary, axillary, or sometimes arising from ultimate shoots below the leaves or fascicled in axils of scales near the base of short lateral branchlets from old wood; pedicels terete, short. Perianth segments 9 - 24, imbricate in about 3 - many series, white, yellow or red. Male flowers with 5 - 15 or more stamens spirally arranged on columnar torus, covering up to apex; filaments very short, free or subconnate; anthers free or partially immersed in fleshy head of confluent filaments; thecae small with broad connectives. Female flowers with many densely imbricate carpels; stigma broad, sessile; ovules 2 - 4. Fruits globose, a head of indehiscent fleshy 1-seeded fruitlets. Seeds 1 - 2, suspended.

India, China, Japan to W. Malesia; ca 22 species, one in India.

Literature. VIJAYARAGHAVAN, M. R. & USHA DHAR (1975) Kadsura heteroclita-micro-sporangium and pollen. J. Arn. Arb. 56: 1 - 224.

List of Lower Taxa