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

Vitaceae

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

grape family
Habit Lianas, low to moderately high climbing, often scrambling over low vegetation.
Branches

usually hairy, sometimes glabrous or glabrate;

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

tendrils 2-branched.

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.

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 or yellowish green.

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, 6–10 mm diam. 2n = 48.

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 verticillata

Vitaceae
Phenology Flowering and fruiting year-round.
Habitat Coastal hammocks, low ground.
Elevation 0–20 m. (0–100 ft.)
Distribution
from FNA
FL; Mexico; Central America; South America; West Indies; Bermuda
[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

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.)

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. trifoliata
Subordinate taxa
Ampelopsis, Causonis, Cissus, Nekemias, Parthenocissus, Vitis
Synonyms Viscum verticillatum, C. argentea, C. cordifolia, C. sicyoides
Name authority (Linnaeus) Nicolson & C. E. Jarvis: Taxon 33: 727. (1984) 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).



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, OregonFlora

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