Tapanava Adanson.

Plants climbing against trees with aid of adhesive roots, or creeping over rocks. Primary shoots branching to produce further adherent shoots and both types (in most species) sterile but giving rise to free, sympodial or physiognomically monopodial flowering shoots, often highly ramified, arising from leaf axil (subg. Pothos) or beneath it [subg. Allopothos]. Leaves simple, distichous; petiole conspicuously winged [or wingless]; petiolar sheath minute or well developed, amplexicaul; articulation distinct (pulvinus at junction of petiole and blade); leaf blade with primary lateral veins on each side of midrib traversed by 1 or more intramarginal veins running ± from base and from ca. midway along midrib to apex or first to distal margins and then to apex. Inflorescences in axils of leaves or seemingly extra-axillary, sometimes pseudoterminal, usually several along stem; peduncle partly or entirely enveloped by sheathlike organs (cataphylls). Spathe inconspicuous, cymbiform or elongate, not constricted, at last entirely spreading, and either spreading or recurved. Spadix sessile or stipitate, varying in shape, with reduced flowers at very base, otherwise fertile. Flowers many, bisexual, sometimes reduced; tepals 6, with vaulted-truncate apex. Stamens 6; filaments strap-shaped; anthers ovoid, longitudinally dehiscent. Ovary 3-loculed; ovule 1 per locule, subbasal; stigma sessile, initially umbilicate. Berry 1-3-seeded. Seeds large, without endosperm.

About 75 species: tropical and subtropical regions of Asia, Australia, Madagascar, and Polynesia; five species in China.

(Authors: Li Heng (李恒 Li Hen); Peter C. Boyce)