4422.000 Dalechampia Plum. ex L.

Monoecious herbs or subshrubs, usually scandent. Indumentum simple, sometimes stinging. Leaves alternate, stipulate, simple, 3-5-lobed or 3-5-foliolate. Inflorescence terminal or axillary, usually solitary and long-stalked, enveloped by 2 large leaf-like bracts; bracts subequal, sessile, entire, toothed or 3-lobed. Male flowers 7-20 in a pedunculate grouping of dichasial cymes in an umbel-like arrangement, accompanied by a mass of fused bracts and aborted flowers; female flowers 1-3 in a subsessile bracteate cyme abaxial to the male peduncle. Male flowers: petals 0; disk 0; stamens c. 10-30. Female flowers: sepals 5-12, usually pinnatifid, accrescent and enclosing the fruit; petals 0; disk 0; styles united into a long column. Fruit 3-lobed, dehiscent into 3 cocci.

Worldwide: 110 species, pantropical; only 6-7 are African.

Zimbabwe: 2 taxa.