Vines and Climbing Plants of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands

Vines and Climbing Plants of Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands 55
Distribution: In moist secondary forests, at
middle and lower elevations. Also on Vieques, St.
Croix, St. Thomas, and Tortola; in the Antilles
and continental tropical America.
3. IRESINE
Public forests: Cambalache, El Yunque,
Guilarte, Maricao, Río Abajo, and Toro Negro.
Erect or clambering herbs, shrubs, and less frequently small trees. Leaves opposite or subopposite,
petiolate; blades simple; stipules absent. Flowers unisexual or bisexual, pedicellate, clustered in cymes
along axillary or terminal panicles; bracts and bracteoles persistent. Tepals 5, with a tuft of hairs at the
base on the outer surface; stamens 5, the filaments united at the base to form a short staminal tube;
interstaminal appendages present or absent; ovary superior, uniovulate, rounded, the stigmas divided
in 2 elongate, filiform branches, sessile or subsessile. Fruit a membranaceous, subglobose, circumscissile
utricle. Seed solitary, globose or lenticular, shiny, naked. A genus of approximately 40 species of
neotropical distribution.
Key to the species of Iresine
1a. Bracts and bracteoles with a dorsal keel, aristate at the apex; bracteoles > 1.5 mm long, of the same
size as the tepals; leaves lanceolate ........................................................................ 1. I. angustifolia
1b. Bracts and bracteoles not keeled or aristate; bracteoles < 1 mm long, smaller than the tepals; leaves
lanceolate or ovate ............................................................................................................ 2. I. diffusa
1. Iresine angustifolia Euphrasén, Beskr. Ste.
Barthél. 165.1795.
Fig. 17. A-F
SYNONYMS: Iresine elatior Rich. ex Willd.
Iresine celosioides Sw.
Herb, clambering or less frequently creeping,
or sometimes a subshrub attainig 2 m in length,
much branched from a woody base. Stems
cylindrical, glabrous, with the nodes somewhat
swollen. Leaves opposite; blades 2-13 × 0.5-4.5
cm, lanceolate, chartaceous, the apex short or
long-acuminate, the base obtuse or acute, usually
unequal, the margins entire, slightly revolute;
upper surface glabrous or puberulous; lower
surface dull, with prominent venation; petioles
slender, 0.5-2 cm long. Flowers bisexual, in
terminal panicles, up to 30 cm long; bracts and
bracteoles lanceolate, with a dorsal keel and the
apex aristate, the bracteoles of the same size as
the tepals. Tepals 5, white to greenish, elliptical,
ca. 1.5 mm long, with a tuft of undulate hairs at
the base; stamens 5; stigma bifid. Capsule
subglobose, membranaceous, ca. 1 mm long; seeds
black, shiny, subglobose, 0.8-1 mm long.
Phenology: Flowering and fruiting throughout
the year.
Status: Native, common.
Distribution: In disturbed areas at lower
elevations. Also on Cayo Santiago, Culebra,
Desecheo, Vieques, St. Croix, St. John, St.
Thomas, and Tortola; from Mexico to Ecuador,
including the Antilles.
Public forests: Guánica and Río Abajo.
2. Iresine diffusa Humb. & Bonpl. ex Willd., Sp.
Pl. 4: 765. 1805.
Fig. 17. J-L
SYNONYMS: Iresine paniculata (L.) Kuntze
Iresine celosioides L.
Iresine celosia L.
Herb or subshrub, clambering or less
frequently creeping, 1-3 m in length, much
branched from the woody base. Stems glabrous
or pubescent, with the nodes compressed, usually
pilose. Leaves opposite; blades 3-9 (-11) × 1-5
cm, lanceolate or ovate, chartaceous, the apex
acute or obtuse, the base obtuse, acute, or truncate,
the margins slightly undulate and revolute; upper
surface dull, puberulous or glabrous; lower surface
dull, pubescent or glabrous, with prominent
venation; petioles slender, 0.5-3.0 cm long.