Leaves simple or sometimes deeply lobed or digitately 3-7-foliolate, margins variously toothed, rarely entire; stipules present
Flowers in leaf-opposed or terminal, rarely axillary cymes with flowers in umbels on ultimate branchlets; buds conical to ovoid
Calyx entire or 4-lobed
Corolla dull yellow or yellow; petals 4, hooded at apex
Disc ± adnate to ovary, thick, annular, entire or lobed
Stamens 4; filaments short
Style simple, subulate; stigma subcapitate
Fruit globose, ellipsoid or ovoid
Seed usually 1, oblong, ovoid or subspherical, often abruptly narrowed at one end and sometimes with a dorsal crest
x = 12 (10, 11, 13, 14) (high polyploidy)
Nomenclature:
Cissus L.
Linnaeus: 117 (1753)
Linnaeus: 53 (1754)
Phillips: 493 (1951)
Wild & Drummond: 448 (1963)
Descoings: 78 (1968)
Merxmüller & Schreiber: 2 (1969)
Descoings: 82 (1972)
Verdcourt: 12 (1993)
Cissus sect. Eucissus Planch.
Planchon: 471 (1887)
Distribution & Notes:
Global: Species ± 200, fairly cosmopolitan in tropical and subtropical regions
Southern Africa: Species 8, except in the Northern and Western Cape
References:
DESCOINGS, B. 1968. Vitacées. Flore du Gabon 14
DESCOINGS, B. 1972. Vitacées. Flore du Cameroun 13
LINNAEUS, C. 1753. Species plantarum. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
LINNAEUS, C. 1754. Genera plantarum, edn 5. Laurentius Salvius, Stockholm
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. 1887. Ampelideae. In A.L.P.P. & A.C.P. de Candolle, Monographiae phanerogamarum 5,2. G. Masson, Paris
VERDCOURT, B. 1993. Flora of tropical East Africa. Vitaceae
WILD, H. & DRUMMOND, R.B. 1963. Vitaceae. Flora zambesiaca 2
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Biodiversity Advisor, developed by the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) and its Data Partners, is a system that will provide integrated biodiversity information to a wide range of users who will have access to geospatial data, plant and animal species distribution data, ecosystem-level data, literature, images and metadata.
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