Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Cissus verticillata

Cissus trifoliata

bejuco loco, millionaire vine, possum grape, princess vine, seasonvine, waterwithe treebine

hierba del buey, ivy treebine, marine vine or ivy, sorrell vine, sorrelvine
Habit Lianas, low to moderately high climbing, often scrambling over low vegetation. Lianas, stout, scrambling or sprawling over low vegetation or small trees.
Branches

usually hairy, sometimes glabrous or glabrate;

branchlets succulent to subsucculent when young, becoming woody; growing tips usually hairy;

tendrils 2-branched.

usually glabrous;

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

tendrils unbranched.
Leaves

simple;

petiole shorter than blade;

blade oblong to ovate, 5–15 × 2–8 cm, unlobed, margins coarsely to finely serrate, surfaces usually hairy, sometimes glabrous.

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.
Flowers

greenish or yellowish green.

greenish, greenish yellow, whitish, or purplish.
Berries

black, 6–10 mm diam. 2n = 48.

black to blue-black, 6–12 mm diam.

Cissus verticillata

Cissus trifoliata
Phenology Flowering and fruiting year-round. Flowering late Apr–Jun; fruiting Aug–Sep.
Habitat Coastal hammocks, low ground. 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 0–20 m. (0–100 ft.) 0–2000 m. (0–6600 ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
FL; Mexico; Central America; South America; West Indies; Bermuda
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
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]
Discussion

Cissus verticillata in the flora area is found in the southern two-thirds of peninsular Florida. The inflorescences of C. verticillata, and less often C. trifoliata, are sometimes greatly expanded and deformed by the smut Mycosyrnix cissi (de Candolle) Beck, with the individual flowers being transformed into subcylindric structures containing the spores of the fungus.

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

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.)
Source FNA vol. 12, p. 21. FNA vol. 12, p. 21.
Parent taxa Vitaceae > Cissus Vitaceae > Cissus
Sibling taxa
C. trifoliata
C. verticillata
Synonyms Viscum verticillatum, C. argentea, C. cordifolia, C. sicyoides Sicyos trifoliatus, C. incisa
Name authority (Linnaeus) Nicolson & C. E. Jarvis: Taxon 33: 727. (1984) (Linnaeus) Linnaeus: Syst. Nat. ed. 10, 2: 897. (1759) — (as trifoliat)
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).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Fabaceae, Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers