Chiococca alba (L.) Hitchc.

  • Authority

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

  • Family

    Rubiaceae

  • Scientific Name

    Chiococca alba (L.) Hitchc.

  • Description

    Species Description - Scandent shrub or liana to 10 m long, with numerous lateral decussate branches; main stem twining and furrowed; cross section of older stems with numerous cortical bundles; twigs nearly cylindrical, puberulent. Leaf blades 3-8 x 1-3.5 cm, elliptic to nearly lanceolate, coriaceous, glabrous, the apex obtuse, acute, or acuminate, the base obtuse or acute, abruptly narrowed onto the petiole, the margins entire, revolute; petioles 4-6 mm long, glabrous or puberulent; stipules ca. 2 mm long, acicular, widened at base. Flowers bisexual or pistillate (the plant polygamous-dioecious), few in axillary racemes, 2.5-5 cm long; pedicels 3.5-5 mm long, few-flowered. Hypanthium 2-2.2 mm long, elliptic, green, crowned by cup-shaped calyx 1-1.2 mm long; sepals triangular, ca. 0.5 mm long; corolla funnel-shaped (5-angled in cross section), yellow, often with reddish lines along angles without, the tube 4.5-6 mm long, the lobes reflexed, triangular, 11.5- 3 mm long; stamens slightly protruding beyond the corolla tube, the filaments 1.6-2.5 mm long, unequal, pilose, connate at base into a short tube, the anthers oblong, 2-3 mm long, indehiscent in pistillate flowers; style club-shaped and long-exserted in pistillate flowers, bilobed and slightly exserted in bisexual flowers. Drupe 5-7 mm long, fleshy, nearly circular, laterally compressed, turning from green to white.

  • Distribution

    A common climber of open disturbed, moist environments and in mature secondary forests. Bordeaux (A1914), Rosenberg (B322). Also on St. Croix, St. Thomas, and Virgin Gorda; throughout the West Indies, Florida, and from Mexico to northern South America.

    Saint Croix Virgin Islands of the United States South America| Virgin Gorda Virgin Islands South America| West Indies| Florida United States of America North America| México Mexico North America| South America|