Cnestis A.L. Juss.

Lianas or scandent shrubs, rarely small trees. Leaves imparipinnate. Inflorescence axillary or terminal, solitary or in fascicles arising from knobs on the branches; bracts minute, scale like or lanceolate. Flowers bisexual, 5-merous. Sepals slightly confluent at the base, lanceolate, acute, valvate. Petals with indented and incurved tips. Stamens 10, free, in two whorls; inner ones slightly shorter, all fertile. Pistils 5; ovary pubescent. Fruits 1 - 3 per flower, straight, beaked, opening by a longitudinal ventral slit, densely minutely tomentose outside, hairy within; pericarp thick. Seed 1, flattened, bean shaped, partly surrounded by a sarcotesta in the basal part opposite to the hilum; endospermous.

Mostly in Tropical Africa and Madagascar; fewer in S.E. Asia; 40 species, 1 in India.

List of Lower Taxa