Gerrardanthus
(called after W. T. Gerrard, a collector at Natal). ORD. Cucurbitaceae. A small genus (three species) of stove or greenhouse, tall, glabrous climbers, natives of Western and Eastern tropical Africa. Flowers greenish or fuscous, dioecious; calyx five-lobed; corolla rotate or campanulate, deeply five-parted; males racemose, with four stamens and an imperfect fifth; females solitary, with an elevated, trigonal ovary. Fruit small, elongated, terete, many-seeded. Leaves membranous, cordate or hastate-cordate. G. tomentosus, the only species known to cultivation, is a stove perennial, of botanical interest. Mr. Wood, now Superintendent of the Natal Botanical Gardens, is recorded to have found, on the top of and between large stones, tubers, one of which "measured 6ft. in circumference, and was nearly 2ft. thick; its surface was scarred; and from the centre arose a stem not more than 3/4in. in diameter, thickly covered with small, round tubercles, which ascended without a leaf to the top of trees 50ft. high. On turning over one of the tubers, it was found to have but one fibrous root, about 1/2in. thick.... The natives do not appear to put the plant to any use" ("Botanical Magazine," 6694). The plant may be increased by seeds. G. tomentosus (downy). fl. yellow, 1/2in. in diameter, the males in short racemes, the females one or two together. fr. 3in. long, obovoid, ten-ribbed, dry, opening by three lobes. l. large, cordate-reniform, five-lobed. (B. M. 6694.)