M.G. Gilbert (2006) Marsdenia. Flora of Somalia 3: 164-165
Plants slender or woody lianas; latex white or clear. Leaves opposite, petiolate; blades ovate to lanceolate. Inflorescences axillary or extra-axillary, sessile or pedunculate, umbelliform or irregularly branched. Sepals ovate, acute or obtuse; corollas more or less succulent, white, yellow, or green, lobed usually to more than midlength; corolline coronas absent; gynostegial coronas of 5 ovoid or flattened, fleshy staminal lobes, attached to anthers basally, shorter or longer than the anthers, tips free; gynostegia conical to spherical; stigmatic heads as long or longer than the anthers, conical or acute; pollinia erect, club-shaped or rounded, basally attached to the translator arms, corpuscula narrowly ovate. Follicles single or paired and spreading at an angle of 180°, thick, conspicuously winged or weakly ribbed; seeds flattened, convex-concave, with broad marginals wings, brown, glabrous except for a tuft of hairs at one end.
Marsdeni includes about 180 species. They grow in tropical regions throughout the world, 15 of them in tropical Africa. Somaliland and Somalia have three species/
Note: GBIF records include introduced and cultivated plants. Consequently, the distribution shown often differs from statements about a taxon's native distribution.