Climbing or creeping shrubs, sometimes herbaceous; tendrils leaf-opposed,
simple or branched. Leaves 3-7 (-9)-foliolate, pedate, petiolate, hairy to glabrous;
leaflets usually petiolulate, terminal usually the largest. Inflorescences axillary,
or psudoterminal, corymbose-cymose, pedunculate. Flowers globose or oblong,
bisexual. Calyx cupular, truncate or shallowly 4-lobed. Petals 4, free, hooded
at apex. Stamens 4; filaments short; anthers oblong. Disc cupular, sinuate
or lobed, adnate to ovary. Style subulate; stigma small. Berries globose or
oblong, 2-4-seeded. Seeds obovate or oblong in outline; adaxial surface usually with 1 or 2 cavities; abaxial surface usually convex with a linear chalazal
knot; endosperm crescent, rectangular or T-shaped in cross-section.
Mainly in tropical and subtropical Africa, Asia and Australia with the
maximum number of species reported from Malesia; ca 55 species, 9 in India.
Notes.
Planchon (in DC., Monogr. Phan. 5: 471. 1887) treated Cayratia
under Cissus L. as a section. Suessenguth (in Engl. & Prant}, Nat. Pflanzenfam.
ed. 2. 20d: 277. 1953) followed Gagnepain [in Notul. Syst. (Paris) 1: 343.
1911] in considering Cissus and Cayratia as distinct genera.
KEY TO THE SPECIES
1a. Berries globose or subglobose when dry; seeds plano-convex with
a single pit on the adaxial side; endosperm crescent shaped or
rectangular in cross section
2
b. Berries pyriform when dry; seeds convex -
carinate with two pits -
one on each side of the ridge -
on the adaxial side or the pits absent
or inconspicuoul; endosperm T -shaped in cross section
8
2a. Leaves 3 foliolate
3
b. Leaves more than 3-foliolate
7
3a. Seeds 6-7 x 5 mm, adaxial side with a circular pit
4
b. Seeds 9-10 x 5-7 mm, adaxial side with a rectangular pit
