Flora of North America species comparison

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Cissus trifoliata

Vitaceae

hierba del buey, ivy treebine, marine vine or ivy, sorrell vine, sorrelvine

grape family
Habit Lianas, stout, scrambling or sprawling over low vegetation or small trees.
Branches

usually glabrous;

branchlets succulent when young, becoming woody, sometimes rooting at nodes; growing tips usually glabrous;

tendrils unbranched.

Leaves

usually 3-foliolate, sometimes simple;

petiole usually shorter than blade;

blade succulent, broadly ovate to ovate-reniform, 2–8 × 2–7 cm, if simple usually 3-lobed, rarely unlobed, margins coarsely and irregularly toothed, surfaces glabrous;

leaflets (compound leaves) ovate to oblong.

alternate, simple or palmately or pinnately compound;

stipules present;

petiole present;

blade often palmately lobed, margins dentate, serrate, or crenate;

venation palmate or pinnate.
Inflorescences

bisexual or functionally unisexual, axillary or terminal and appearing leaf-opposed, cymes or thryses [spikes].
Flowers

greenish, greenish yellow, whitish, or purplish.

bisexual or unisexual;

perianth and androecium hypogynous;

hypanthium absent;

sepals 4–5(–9), connate most or all of length;

petals (3–)4–5(–9), distinct (connate distally, forming calyptra, in Vitis) [connate basally], valvate, free;

nectary intrastaminal;

stamens (3–)4–5(–9), opposite petals, distinct;

anthers dehiscing by longitudinal slits;

staminodes present in functionally pistillate flowers;

pistil 1, 2[–3]-carpellate, ovary superior, 2[–3]-locular, placentation axile, sometimes appearing parietal;

ovules 2 per locule, apotropous or anatropous;

style 1;

stigma 1 [4].
Fruits

berries.
Berries

black to blue-black, 6–12 mm diam.

Seeds

1–4 per fruit.
Vines

or lianas, occasionally shrubby [trees], synoecious, dioecious, or polygamomonoecious; commonly with multicellular, stalked, caducous, spheric structures (pearl glands);

tendrils usually present, rarely absent.

Cissus trifoliata

Vitaceae
Phenology Flowering late Apr–Jun; fruiting Aug–Sep.
Habitat Rocky wooded hillsides, stream banks, prairie ravines, glades, bluffs, chaparral, coastal hammocks and dunes, maritime woodlands, shell mounds in salt marshes, roadsides, waste places.
Elevation 0–2000 m. (0–6600 ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
AL; AR; AZ; FL; GA; KS; LA; MO; MS; NM; OK; TX; Mexico; Central America; West Indies; n South America
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
North America; Mexico; Central America; South America; West Indies; Eurasia; Africa; Indian Ocean Islands; Pacific Islands; Australia; primarily tropical and subtropical with a few genera in warm temperate to temperate regions
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Many previous authors treated Cissus incisa and C. trifoliata as distinct species, but the characters used to separate them (size of leaflets, branching patterns of cymes, and berry shape) appear to intergrade abundantly, particularly in Florida, where their geographical ranges overlap. It appears that much of the basis for separating these two species is geographical distribution and habitat, with C. trifoliata being chiefly coastal and tropical and C. incisa being chiefly subtropical and temperate continental. Some authors (for example, R. P. Wunderlin 1982; R. K. Godfrey 1988; J. A. Lombardi 2000) therefore have treated C. incisa as a synonym of C. trifoliata, a conclusion that is followed here.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Genera 15, species ca. 900 (6 genera, 30 species in the flora).

In the past decade, considerable effort has been made to reconstruct the phylogeny of Vitaceae (M. Rossetto et al. 2001, 2002; M. J. Ingrouille et al. 2002; A. Soejima and Wen J. 2006; Wen et al. 2007; Ren H. et al. 2011; A. Trias-Blasi et al. 2012; Lu L. M. et al. 2013; Wen et al. 2013b; Zhang N. et al. 2015). These analyses have generally supported five major clades within Vitaceae: the Ampelopsis clade, the Ampelocissus-Vitis clade, the Parthenocissus-Yua clade, the core Cissus clade, and the Cayratia-Cyphostemma-Tetrastigma clade.

Placentation type and ovary locule number in Vitaceae have been interpreted in different ways. Most authors state that the gynoecium is bilocular and the placentation type is axile (for example, J. E. Planchon 1887; P. K. Endress 2010), but others report the gynoecium as unilocular and refer to the placentation type as parietal (V. Puri 1952; N. C. Nair and K. V. Mani 1960). Recent anatomical studies confirm that the ovary in Vitaceae is usually bilocular [occasionally trilocular in Cayratia, or unilocular in some species of Cyphostemma (Planchon) Alston, such as Cyphostemma sandersonii (Harvey) Descoings], and that the placentation is axile, although it may sometimes appear parietal (S. M. Ickert-Bond et al. 2014).

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Key
1. Leaves 2–3-pinnately compound.
Nekemias
1. Leaves simple or palmately compound.
→ 2
2. Pith brown; petals connate distally, forming calyptra; bark exfoliating (adherent in Vitis rotundifolia).
Vitis
2. Pith white; petals distinct; bark adherent.
→ 3
3. Petals 4; stamens 4.
→ 4
4. Inflorescences leaf-opposed; seeds 1(–4) per fruit.
Cissus
4. Inflorescences axillary; seeds 2–4 per fruit.
Causonis
3. Petals 5; stamens 5.
→ 5
5. Tendrils 2-branched; nectaries cup-shaped, adnate proximally to base of ovary, free distally; styles elongate, cylindric.
Ampelopsis
5. Tendrils 3–12-branched; nectaries annular, adnate to base of ovary, or absent; styles short, conic.
Parthenocissus
Source FNA vol. 12, p. 21. FNA vol. 12, p. 3. Authors: Michael O. Moore†, Jun Wen.
Parent taxa Vitaceae > Cissus
Sibling taxa
C. verticillata
Subordinate taxa
Ampelopsis, Causonis, Cissus, Nekemias, Parthenocissus, Vitis
Synonyms Sicyos trifoliatus, C. incisa
Name authority (Linnaeus) Linnaeus: Syst. Nat. ed. 10, 2: 897. (1759) — (as trifoliat) Jussieu
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



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