Alternative names: Not Applicable

Description:
Shrubs or herbs sometimes with twining stems, usually with milky latex; leaves simple or scale-like, entire, usually opposite, exstipulate.

Inflorescence umbellate or cymose, usually pedunculate, pedicels erect or deflexed in fruit; sepals 5, small, fused or not; corolla deeply 5-lobed, lobes usually imbricate; stamens 5, at the base of the corolla and alternate with the lobes; filaments and anthers concealed by a fleshy staminal corona, or sometimes the corona free and membranous; anthers 2-celled, introrse, winged; pollen masses (pollinia) waxy, in pairs (1 from each adjoining anther); pistil superior; carpels and styles 2, united by the style apices in a head bearing the stigmas below; pistil and stamens combined to form the gynostegium.

Fruit of 1 sometimes 2 follicles per flower; seeds flattened, brown, comose at the apex.

Distribution:  Perhaps as many as 2,000 species in 250 genera, cosmopolitan mainly in tropical areas. There are a number in cultivation as ornamentals; Hoya (wax plant), Stapelia (carrion plant), Ceropegia (chain of hearts), etc. 75 species, in 19 genera in Australia.

Biology: No text

Key to Genera:

1. Leafless or the leaves reduced and scale-like; corona double
2. Pollen masses pendulous; stems cylindrical	SARCOSTEMMA 6.
2. Pollen masses erect or horizontal; stems 4-angled, fleshy	STAPELIA 7.
1. Leafy shrubs, erect or twining; corona simple
3. Plant erect	ASCLEPIAS 2.
3. Plant twining, climbers
4. Leaves linear
5. Pollen masses pendulous; corolla almost rotate	RHYNCHARRHENA 5.
5. Pollen masses erect; corolla campanulate	LEICHHARDTIA 4.
4. Leaves lanceolate, ovate or deltoid
6. Corolla tube c. 12 mm long	ARAUJIA 1.
6. Corolla tube c. 2 mm long	CYNANCHUM 3.

Author: Prepared by R. D. Pearce