Ampelocissus is a genus of flowering plants in the grape family Vitaceae (order Vitales), comprising 90 to 95 species distributed across the tropical regions of Africa, Asia, Australia, Madagascar, Malesia, Oceania, and Central America. Described by Jules Émile Planchon in 1884, the genus has its type species in Ampelocissus latifolia, originally described as Vitis latifolia from the Indian subcontinent.
Species of Ampelocissus range from perennial herbs to woody shrubs and lianas, equipped with simple or bifurcating tendrils that arise opposite the leaves for climbing. They may be evergreen or deciduous. The leaves are alternate, varying from simple to palmately compound with three to eleven leaflets, or pinnately divided, often with glandular-punctate surfaces. Inflorescences are paniculate, cymose, or capitate, bearing numerous small flowers that are typically bisexual (rarely polygamo-dioecious). Each flower has four or five petals, a cup-shaped calyx with short teeth, and a prominent nectariferous disk that is adnate to the ovary base and marked with five to ten grooves. The ovary is superior and two-chambered.
The fruits are globose or ellipsoid berries, fleshy and grape-like, containing one to four seeds. The seeds are obovoid to ellipsoid-oblong with a variably wrinkled testa and a distinctive T-shaped endosperm in cross-section. The diploid chromosome number is 2n = 40. The genus is conserved (nom. cons.) under the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature against the earlier name Botria.
Etymology
The genus Ampelocissus was first described by French botanist Jules Émile Planchon in 1884 in his work La Vigne Américaine. The name combines the Greek ampelos (vine) with Cissus, the closely related genus of Vitaceae whose name derives from Greek kissos (ivy). The generic name Ampelocissus is conserved (nom. cons.) under the International Code of Botanical Nomenclature against the earlier name Botria.
Distribution
Ampelocissus has a broad pantropical distribution spanning the Old World and parts of the Neotropics. It is found across tropical and southern Africa (from Senegal to South Africa and Madagascar), throughout South and Southeast Asia (from Pakistan to the Philippines and New Guinea), in northern Australia, on numerous Pacific islands including Fiji, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands, and in Central America from Mexico to Panama as well as Cuba. The greatest species diversity occurs in tropical Africa and Asia.
Taxonomy
Ampelocissus belongs to subfamily Vitoideae within the grape family Vitaceae (order Vitales). Established by Planchon in 1884, the name is conserved (nom. cons.) against the earlier-published Botria Loureiro, which is treated as a rejected name (nom. rej.). GBIF also lists Pareira as a synonym. The type species is Ampelocissus latifolia (Roxburgh) Planchon, originally described under the basionym Vitis latifolia from the Indian subcontinent. The genus is closely related to Cissus, from which it was segregated, and phylogenetic studies using plastid and nuclear ribosomal DNA have investigated the monophyly of these genera. GBIF records 121 accepted species-level descendants.
Uses
The fruits of several Ampelocissus species are edible. Ampelocissus africana is specifically noted as a species whose fruits are consumed by people.
