Mikania

  • Authority

    Acevedo-Rodríguez, Pedro & collaborators. 1996. Flora of St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 78: 1-581.

  • Family

    Asteraceae

  • Scientific Name

    Mikania

  • Description

    Genus Description - Twining herbaceous to woody vines; stems cylindrical or hexagonal. Leaves simple, opposite, generally petiolate. Inflorescence terminal or axillary, ultimate branches spiciform, racemiform, glomerate, or paniculate-corymbiform. Heads discoid, 4-flowered; involucre cylindrical, of 4 subequal, weakly overlapping involucral bracts, often subtended by a smaller bract; receptacle flat, naked, glabrous. Flowers bisexual; corollas actinomorphic, tubular, cream-colored, throat urn-shaped to broadly bell-shaped; style branches ascending and elongate, cream-colored, the upper half with a large sterile appendage. Achenes commonly pentagonal, brownish to black; pappus of numerous bristles, these about as long as the corollas and longer than the achenes.

  • Distribution

    A genus of about 400 species primarily in the N e w World tropics and subtropics, but also 11 species in the N e w World temperate zone or warmer regions of the Old World.

    Saint John Virgin Islands of the United States South America|