刺核藤属 ci he teng shu

Lianas woody, without tendrils and latex. Leaves alternate, petiolate, scabrid or sparsely hairy, entire or serrate. Plants dioecious. Flowers small, apetalous. Staminate flowers in slender spikes, with bractlets; calyx 4-cleft, rarely 3- or 5-cleft; lobes valvate; stamens 4, alternate with calyx lobes; anthers introrse; gynoecium reduced. Pistillate flowers in dense spikes, without bractlets; calyx as in male flowers, persistent, recurved; rudimentary stamens very short; ovary with stigma capitate, sessile. Drupe slightly compressed; endocarp thin, fragile crustaceous, outside wrinkled, inside with warty or spinose protuberances penetrating endosperm. Seeds with fleshy endosperm; cotyledons large, leaflike.

About ten species: tropical Africa and Asia; one species in China.

Lower Taxon

• Pyrenacantha volubilis Wight