Jeffrey, C. & M. Thulin (1993) Flora of Somalia 1, pp. 216-240.
Plants usually herbaceous, annual or perennial climbers or trailers, usually with tendrils, often with tuberous rootstock, sometimes unisexual. Leaves alternatie, petiolate, simple and usually palmately lobed to pdeately compound, without stipules; tendrils inserted laterally to the leaf bases, simple or 2-7-branched, rarely reduced or absent. Inflorescences various. Flowers usually radially symmetric, rarely bilaterally symmetric, usually unisexual and plants either with both staminate and pistillate flowers (species monoecious) or with only staminate or only pistillate flowers (species dioecious); hypanthia present; sepals usually 5, free; petals usually 5, usually united, often shortly so, rarely free; stamens basically 5, alternate with the corolla lobes, nearly always united in some way, often appearing as 2 pairs of more or less united stamens and 1 free stamen or all the filaments partly or completely united into a central column;; anthers nearly always with only 1 theca and , these often variously sinuous or convoluted; ovaries inferior, usually of 2-3 carpels or of 1 carpel, placentation pareital and intrusive; ovules anatropous, 1-many; styles 1, usually with 2-3-bilobed stigmas or styles 2-3. Fruitsvarious, usually a fleshy or hard-shelled berry, indehiscent or variously dehiscent; seeds 1-many, large, often compressed, non-endospermous,; embryos straight.
The Cucurbitataceae family includes about 120 genera and 825 species. It is primarily tropical and subtropical.
