Perennials. Stems usually twining-climbing, sometimes procumbent, glabrous [hairy]. Leaves petiolate; blade ± ovate or palmately to pinnately lobed, 20–120 mm, surfaces sparsely hairy [glabrous]. Inflorescences 2–3-flowered cymes or flowers solitary, usually bracteate, bracts foliaceous. Flowers: sepals obovate, orbiculate, or ovate, 11–16 mm, equal or unequal, larger and leathery in fruit, margins sometimes dentate, glabrous; corolla white [yellow or reddish to salmon], campanulate [funnelform or salverform], 34–53 mm, limb ± entire [weakly 5-lobed]; anthers twisted after dehiscence; pollen 3-colpate, not echinate; styles 1; stigmas 2, globose. Fruits capsular, cuboid to globose, dehiscence circumscissile. Seeds 1–4, ellipsoid [ovoid], glabrous [hairy]. x = 15.

Distribution

Texas, Mexico, worldwide in tropics and subtropics, most in Old World.

Discussion

Species ca. 18 (1 in the flora).

Selected References

None.

Lower Taxa

Operculina pinnatifida