Tecunumania Standl. & Steyerm.
Tecunumania Standl. & Steyerm., Publ. Field Mus. Nat. Hist., Bot. Ser. 23: 96-97. 1944.
Type: Tecunumania quetzalteca Standl. & Steyerm., P.C. Standley 68931 (F), Guatemala, Dept. San Marcos, Finca Vergel, wet forest near rodeo, alt. about 900 m. 1939.

Perennial climber with several meters long herbaceous shoots and dioecious sex system. The leaves are simple, petiolate, with ovate-cordate and palmately 5-lobed blade. The tendrils are 2-(4-)fid. The flowers are large, solitary. The receptacle-tube is campanulate with five linear sepals. The corolla is rotate with five obovate, yellow petals, which are fused at the base. The three stamens are inserted near the base of the tube on free but closely apressed filaments. The anthers are bithecous, connate into a globose head with triplicate thecae. The pollen is triporate, echinate, and large (polar axis c. 97 µm, equatorial axis c. 102 µm, (Khunwasi 1998)). The ovary is globose with many horizontal ovules, elongated style and three bilobed stigmata. The fruit is fleshy, subglobose, 7-8 cm long, indehiscent, ripening dark green. The many seeds are 6-7 mm long and 4-5 mm broad, compressed, with pale yellowish-brown testa, densely appressed hairy.

The two species grow in wet montane forest in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, Guatemala. Named after Guatemala’s national hero Tecún Umán, (1500?-1524), the last ruler of the Quiché people.

Tecunumania is placed in tribe Cucurbiteae near the genera Schizocarpum and Cionosycis (Schaefer et al. 2009).