Alternative names: Not Applicable

Description:
Annual or perennial somewhat succulent often scrambling or climbing herbs with watery juice; leaves usually alternate, often peltate, the petioles usually long and sometimes aiding in climbing, stipules present but sometimes minute.

Flowers bisexual, zygomorphic, pedunculate, solitary in leaf axils; calyx of 5 fused sepals, 1 produced into a nectar-beating spur, herbaceous-succulent; corolla showy, of 5 free petals or rarely only 2, clawed, entire or lobed; stamens 8, anthers small, basifixed and laterally dehiscing, filaments filiform; carpels 3, fused, ovary 3-celled, style bearing 3 stigmatic branches; ovules 1 per cell, pendulous.

Fruit of 3 indehiscent nutlets or rarely fleshy; seeds lacking endosperm.

Distribution:  2 genera with about 100 species in the Americas.

Biology: No text

Author: Prepared by J.P. Jessop