Byttneria Loefl., nom. cons.

Herbs, shrubs or trees, often climbers, usually prickly. Leaves simple, alternate, lobed or entire; petiolate. Flowers minute, bisexual in much branched axillary or terminal umbellate cymes. Sepals 5, connate at base. Petals 5 with a narrow claw and a hooded limb which usually enter the staminal cup and cover the anther lobes, sometimes with two strap-shaped appendages on both sides of the hood and a long process. Staminal cup with an inner serries of 5 stamens and an outer series of 5 staminodes alternating with stamens; anther lobes reniform, divergent, extrorse; staminodes ovate, acute. Ovary small, 5-loculed; ovules 2 in each locule; styles entire or 5-fid. Capsules globose, spiny, or prickly, septicidally 5-valved, valves breaking away from the central column. Seed 1 in each locule, exalbuminous; cotyledons folded.

Tropical America, Africa, Mascarene Islands, Tropical Asia, West Polynesia, ca 50 species; 4 in India.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Leaves entire

2

b. Leaves lobed

3

2a. Leaves longer than broad, up to 7 cm long, membranous, dentate

3. Byttneria herbacea

b. Leaves orbicular, up to 20 cm in diam., chartaceous, entire

2. Byttneria grandifolia

3a. Leaves glabrescent; capsules covered with stiff spines

1. Byttneria andamanensis

b. Leaves pilose; capsules covered with barbed prickles

4. Byttneria pilosa

List of Lower Taxa