Chiococca P. Browne.

Jardim, Jomar G., Taylor, Charlotte M., Barbosa, Maria Regina & Pessoa, Maria Do Céo R., 2015, Taxonomic notes on Chiococca and Salzmannia (Rubiaceae, Chiococceae) in northeastern Brazil, with a new combination and a new species, Phytotaxa 202 (1), pp. 15-25 : 17-18

Chiococca P. Browne.

Type: Chiococca alba ( L.) Hitchc.

This genus includes about 20 species of twining vines, shrubs, and small trees found from the southeastern USA, northern Mexico, through the Antilles and Central America, and widely distributed from northern South America to Bolivia, Paraguay, and northern Argentina. This genus has not been comprehensively reviewed taxonomically. The most widespread, morphologically variable, and commonly collected species is C. alba , which has not been studied across its range and probably includes more than one taxon. Morphological descriptions of this genus were presented by Taylor & Steyermark (2004a), Jung-Mendaçolli (2005), Delprete (2010), and Lorence (2012).

Chiococca includes four known species in the Northeast Region of Brazil, which can be identified with the key presented below. However, neither the genus nor the species of this region have been studied in detail since the work of Müller (1881), and as this current treatment is not satisfactory, more detailed taxonomic study is underway (Jardim et al., in prep). One species of uncertain genus affinity, Palicourea insularis Ridley (1890: 41) , is newly included here in Chiococca as discussed under that species. Delprete (2004) presented several morphological observations on some species of Chiococca in this region, in particular that both C. plowmanii and C. nitida are characterized by fruits that develop from bilocular ovaries but consistently abort one ovule and produce only one pyrene. Variation in fruit morphology within Chiococca is further expanded here with the inclusion of P. insularis , which produces four rather than two pyrenes. Variation in stigma and pyrene number has been documented within various genera of Rubiaceae (e.g., Palicourea Aublet (1775: 172) , Steyermark, 1974, Taylor & Steyermark, 2004b; Erithalis, Negrón-Ortiz, 2005 ), so the inclusion of C. plowmanii and P. insularis in Chiococca is not precluded by these characters.