Indomelothria.

Indomelothria W. J. de Wilde & Duyfjes
Indomelothria W. J. de Wilde & Duyfjes, Blumea 51: 5. 2006.
Type: Indomelothria chlorocarpa W.J.de Wilde & Duyfjes, W.J. de Wilde et al. 143915 (L (holotype), SAN (isotype)), Sabah, Imbak River area.

Perennial climbers with up to 5 m long, herbaceous shoots and monoecious sex system. The tendrils are simple. The leaves are simple, the blade entire or shallowly lobed. Male flowers are produced in pedunculate racemes, female flowers solitary. The receptacle-tube is campanulate to urceolate with five minute, linear sepals. The corolla is up to 10 mm in diameter with five small, white or yellow petals. The three stamens are inserted in the upper half of the tube on free, short, thick filaments. Two anthers are bithecous, one monothecous. The thecae are straight or slightly curved and contain tricolporate, reticulate, small pollen (polar axis c. 42 µm, equatorial axis c. 39 µm (van der Ham & Pruesapan 2006)). The ovary is narrowly ellipsoid and carries a trilobed, long-hairy stigma. The fruit is solitary, narrowly ellipsoid to fusiform, up to 7 cm long on short pedicel, glabrous, smooth, ripening green. The many seeds are embedded in pulp, compressed, ovate-elliptic, with dense appressed hairs.

Two species on forest margins, in marshland and disturbed ground of Southeast Asia (Myanmar, Thailand, Indonesia, Malesia).

Phylogenetically, Indomelothria is the Old World sister group to the New World genus Melothria, from which it split about 15 million years ago (Schaefer et al. 2009, Schaefer & Renner 2011). Both are placed in tribe Benincaseae.

Accepted species

Indomelothria blumei (Ser.) W.J.de Wilde & Duyfjes, Blumea 51: 6. 2006.
Indomelothria chlorocarpa W.J.de Wilde & Duyfjes, Blumea 51: 7. 2006.

Literature

De Wilde, W.J.J.O. and B. E. E. Duyfjes. 2006. Redefinition of Zehneria and four new related genera (Cucurbitaceae), with an enumeration of the Australasian and Pacific species. Blumea 51: 1-88.

Schaefer, H. and S.S. Renner. 2011. Phylogenetic relationships in the order Cucurbitales and a new classification of the gourd family (Cucurbitaceae). Taxon 60: 122-138.

Schaefer, H., Heibl, C., and S.S. Renner. 2009. Gourds afloat: a dated phylogeny reveals an Asian origin of the gourd family (Cucurbitaceae) and numerous oversea dispersal events. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 276: 843-851.

Van der Ham, R.W.J.M. and K. Pruesapan. 2006. Pollen morphology of Zehneria s. l. (Cucurbitaceae). Grana 45: 241-248.