8599.010 Cucumella Chiov.

Rather small scandent or prostrate perennial herbs. Stems herbaceous, annual or perennial, becoming somewhat woody when old. Leaves simple, petiolate. Tendrils simple. Flowers small, yellow. Male flowers solitary or in small fascicles, pedicellate. Receptacle-tube campanulate, lobes small, subulate or filiform. Corolla-lobes 5, united below. Female flowers solitary, pedicellate; ovary shortly hirsute or hispid; ovules many, horizontal. Fruit rather small, fleshy, thin-walled or firm-walled, smooth but always ± hirsute or scabrid, ellipsoid or fusiform, sometimes rostrate, indehiscent. Seeds small, ovate or elliptic in outline, compressed, whitish.

Worldwide: 8 species, 7 in Africa and Madagascar and 1 in India.

Malawi: 2 taxa.