S. NAZIMUDDIN AND S. SHAHARYAR H. NAQVI
Sphaerosicyos Hook. f.
Annuals or perennials, scandent or trailing, monoecious or dioecious; tendrils 2-fid. Leaves simple, palmately 3-5-lobed, ovate, cordate, suborbicular, petiole with 2 glands at its apex. Flowers large, white. Male flowers long peduncled, solitary or racemose. Calyx tube campanulate or funnel-shaped, lobes 5, small, distant. Petals. 5, free, obovate or oblong-obovate, retuse. Stamens 3, anthers included, connate or free, oblong, thecae sigmoid-flexuose, contiguous or separate, connective dilated, not produced, papillose, papillae turgid, greenish-grey, oblong, pointed. Female flowers solitary. Calyx tube cup-shaped. Petals like the male. Staminodes 3, obsolete. Ovary ovoid or cylindric, triplacentiferous. Style thick, short, stigmas 3, bilobed, thick; ovules numerous, horizontal. Fruit large, epicarp hard, mesocarp fleshy; indehiscent, polymorphous, usually broader upwards. Seeds many, oblong, ovate-oblong, compressed, with a marginal groove (truncate), smooth.
A genus of 6 species; 1 pantropical, 1 tropical Africa and Madagascar; 4 tropical Africa. Represented in Pakistan by one cultivated species.
