Megistostigma Hook.f.

Slender woody climbers with twining stems and stinging hairs. Leaves alternate, petiolate, trinerved at base; stipules conspicuous. Inflorescences terminal or leaf-opposed, racemose, bisexual, pedunculate, with 1 female flower at the proximal node and several to many male flowers at the distal nodes, bracteate. Male flowers: sepals 3, valvate, shortly connate at base; petals absent; disc trigonous-annular; stamens 3, free, alternating with calyx lobes; filaments short, thick; anthers bilocular; thecae divergent, attached to the base of thickened connective, dehiscing laterally and longitudinally; connective shortly produced at apex. Female flowers: sepals 3 + 3, imbricate; petals absent; disc absent; ovary 3-loculed, 3-lobed; locules 1-ovuled; styles thickened and united into a large subglobose mass. Fruits capsular, depressed, tricoccous, consisting of 3 bivalved woody cocci; seeds globose; testa mottled; albumen fleshy; cotyledons broad, flat.

Myanmar to China, Philippines and Borneo; 5 species, one in India.

Literature. CHAKRABARTY, T. & N. P. BALAKRISHNAN (2006). The genera Megistostigma Hook.f. and Tragia L. (Euphorbiaceae) in India. Rheedea 16(1): 15 – 28.

List of Lower Taxa