downloads/Killip 1.pdf - Passion Flowers

AMERICAN PASSIFLORACEAE 11
GENERAL MORPHOLOGY
In view of the thorough treatments of the morphology, organogeny,
minute anatomy, and fertilization of the flower presented by
Masters and by Harms, it seems unnecessary at this time to do more
than discuss in a general way the vegetative and floral parts of the
American Passifloraceae, mainly with a view to a proper understanding
of the terms used in the keys and descriptions.
the floral structure are shown in Figures 1 and 2.
Details of
Habit. Most of the passionflowers are herbaceous or woody
vines, climbing by means of tendrils, or subscandent shrubs. Some
species of the subgenus Astrophea are true shrubs or low trees, and
in Dysosmia two species are low, spreading shrubs.
Stem. The stem is terete or 3-5-angled. In Plectostemma it
is usually longitudinally striate and often deeply grooved; in Granadilla
it is terete or quadrangular.
Tendrils. The tendrils are usually solitary in the axils of the
leaves. In a few species they terminate the peduncles, and in one
species some of the tendrils are axillary and some develop from a
flowerless fork of a bifurcate peduncle.
Stipules. The stipules vary from setaceous to broadly ovate,
and constitute an excellent mark of distinction between groups of
species. Their margin usually is entire in Plectostemma and Murucuja,
entire or toothed in Granadilla and Tacsonia, and deeply cleft
in Dysosmia. In Astrophea the stipules are setaceous, or at most
narrowly linear, and soon deciduous. In several species of Granadilla
with foliaceous stipules, the stipule is attached on one side slightly
above its base. In the measurement of the stipules given in this
paper -the term "length" is always applied to the longest dimension,
even though this may not be the distance from the point of attachment
of the stipule to its margin.
Leaves. The leaves are always alternate, but probably in no
group of plants is their shape more striking or the variation in outline
of those of a single plant more extreme than in Passiflora.
Especially is this true of the small-flowered vines of Plectostemma
and the showier-flowered murucujas. The leaves may be undivided
and transversely elliptic, orbicular, narrowly linear, or broadly
ovate; or bilobed with widely spreading or erect lobes; or 3-5-lobed;
or, in the case of a few species, compound. The margin is usually
entire, though in several species it is toothed or even pectinate.
The leaves are predominantly 3-nerved or obscurely 5-nerved, the