Parabaena Miers

Slender woody climbers. Leaves ovate or oblong, cordiform or hastate at base, rarely 3 - 5-lobed, entire or repand-dentate along margins, palmately nerved at base, papyraceous; petiules swollen and geniculate at base. Inflorescences axillary, dichotomously cymose or thyrsoid. Male flowers: sepals 6, free, equal; petals 6, sometimes with projecting lobes on basal inner surface; synandrium usually peltate; anthers around the margin, dehiscing transversely. Female flowers: sepals and petals as in male flowers; staminodes 6, minute; carpels 3; stigma reflexed, lobed or laciniate. Drupes 3, borne on subglobose carpophore, subglobose; endocarp bony, variously ridged or spiny on dorsal and lateral surfaces; condyle ventrally placed, bordered by incurved spines or developed into inflated ventral chamber, with flattened seed cavity; cotyledons very thin, divaricate, broad; radicle prominent.

S.E. Asia, from India up to Solomon Islands; ca 6 species, one in India.

List of Lower Taxa