A RED-FLOWERED
GRAPEVINE, ALMOST
There's a full-fledged woody vine climbing into
trees, securing itself with wiry tendrils tightly clinging to tree limbs. It's just like a
northern grapevine, except that its leaves are divided into three leaflets, while you
think of grapevine leaves as being a single broad blade. Also, this vine's flowers are
red, and of course grapevine flowers aren't supposed to be red. You can see this handsome
woody vine in full flower below:
 .
From descriptions on the Internet, I figure this is CISSUS CUCURBITINA, apparently with
no English name. I can only find reference to it occurring in Mexico, so maybe it's
endemic here. It's such a robust, pretty species that it deserves to be propagated
horticulturally.
Belonging to the genus Cissus, it almost IS a red-flowered grapevine, since Cissus
belongs to the Grapevine Family, the Vitaceae, and the genus Cissus is
closely related to the Grapevine genus, Vitis.
The genera Cissus and Vitis are separated by the fact that Vitis's
FIVE flower petals stick together to form a "cap" that falls off as a single
unit, while Cissus's FOUR separate petals spread and fall off independently. Cissus
fruits do look a lot like Vitis grapes, however. Most of them are pea-size or
smaller, like the North's wild Frost Grapes, so they're great for birds but not so
interesting to humans. The genus Cissus includes about 350 mostly-tropical
species, while Vitis only has some 60 mostly-northern ones. |