Prostrate or climbing monoecious or dioecious herbs, sometimes subfleshy with perennial roots. Leaves entire, lobed, dentate and partite; tendril mostly simple. Male flowers racemose or corymbose; calyx campanulate; lobes 5, short; corolla rotate, 5-partite; stamens 3, rarely 5, one 1-locular and two 2-locular (or when 5, all 1-locular), free or coherent, loculi curved, connective mostly 2-fid or 2-partite and produced beyond the loculi into 2 appendages or claws; rudimentary ovary absent or gland-like. Female flowers solitary or clustered; calyx and corolla as in the male; rudimentary stamens absent or 3 and small; ovary ovoid, beaked, with 2-3 placentas; style surrounded at the base by an obscure disc; stigmas 2 or 3, large or narrow; ovules few, horizontal, rarely numerous. Fruit sessile or subsessile berry, ovoid, beaked, few to several-seeded, margined or not, testa mostly crustaceous, smooth.

A genus of c. 23 species, mainly distributed in Tropical and South Africa, extending to Arabia, Tropical Asia and few species are found in Madagascar. Represented in Pakistan by the following species:

Lower Taxon

• Kedrostis foetidissima (Jacq.) Cogn.

Related Synonym(s):

• Bryonia rostrata Roettl. = Kedrostis foetidissima (Jacq.) Cogn.
• Kedrostis rostrata (Roettl.) Cogn. = Kedrostis foetidissima (Jacq.) Cogn.
• Melothria foetidissima (Jacq.) G. Roberty = Kedrostis foetidissima (Jacq.) Cogn.
• Rhynchocarpa foetida Clarke = Kedrostis foetidissima (Jacq.) Cogn.
• Trichosanthes foetidissima Jacq. = Kedrostis foetidissima (Jacq.) Cogn.