Erect, prostrate or climbing herbs, often with swollen or jointed nodes, or erect or semiscandent shrubs or trees with thick succulent stems
Tendrils
present or 0, leaf-opposed or arising from a peduncle
Leaves
alternate, simple or palmately 3-5-foliolate, rarely pedate, subsessile or petiolate; margins entire or variously toothed; stipules present or 0
Flowers
regular, usually bisexual, usually in cymes opposite leaves; buds cylindric and constricted ± in middle, or conical to ovoid or depressed-globose, apex often inflated
Calyx
entire or 4-6-lobed or -toothed
Corolla
: petals 4-6, free, or often ± united at tips and falling as bud opens, valvate, becoming deflexed after anthesis, caducous
Disc
intrastaminal, annular or of separate glands
Stamens
4-6, opposite petals; filaments free, straight or bending noticeably over gynoecium; anthers 2-thecous, medifixed, with longitudinal dehiscence
Ovary
superior, 2-locular with 2 ovules in each locule; style short; stigma subulate to capitate
Fruit
a berry, with 1-4 seeds
Seeds
with copious, sometimes ruminate endosperm
Nomenclature:
Vitaceae
Hooker: 386 (1862)
Baker: 385 (1868)
Planchon: 318 (1884)
Phillips: 492 (1951)
Suessenguth: 174 (1953)
Wild & Drummond: 439 (1963)
Descoings: 67 (1968)
Merxmüller & Schreiber: 1 (1969)
Descoings: 3 (1972)
Verdcourt: 1 (1993)
Distribution & Notes:
Global
: Genera 14, species ± 1000, in tropical to temperate regions of both hemispheres
Southern Africa
: Genera 5, species 53
References:
BAKER, J.J. 1868.
Vitaceae
.
Flora of tropical Africa
1
DESCOINGS, B. 1968. Vitacées.
Flore du Gabon
14
DESCOINGS, B. 1972. Vitacées.
Flore du Cameroun
13
HOOKER, J.D. 1862.
Ampelideae
. In G. Bentham & J.D. Hooker,
Genera plantarum
1
MERXMÜLLER, H. & SCHREIBER A. 1969.
Vitaceae
.
Prodromus einer Flora von Südwestafrika
80
PHILLIPS, E.P. 1951. The genera of South African flowering plants.
Memoirs of the Botanical Survey of South Africa
No. 25
PLANCHON, J.E. 1884.
Les vignes américaines
8. Adrien Delahaye, Paris
SUESSENGUTH, K. 1953.
Vitaceae
.
Die natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien
, edn 2, 20d
VERDCOURT, B. 1993.
Flora of tropical East Africa
.
Vitaceae
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