Chiococca alba (Linnaeus, 1753) Hitchcock, 1893

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 : 18

Chiococca alba (L.) Hitchc.

This species includes morphologically variable low shrubs and more often twining vines and lianas, which are commonly found in secondary habitats. This species was treated as Chiococca brachiata Ruiz & Pavón (1799: 67) by Müller (1881: 50–54), who described it as “species valde variabilis” (an extremely variable species) and recognized 15 varieties. The name C. brachiata is today considered a synonym of C. alba ( Steyermark, 1972, 1974; Taylor & Steyermark, 2004a; Delprete, 2010). Müller synonymized a number of names based on Brazilian plants, and separated his varieties based generally on petiole size, leaf size, shape, and texture, and degree of development of the inflorescence. In his circumscription C. alba is found throughout Brazil and includes a broad variation in leaf size and degree of sclerophylly, inflorescence development, and habitat. These plants no doubt vary morphologically in correlation with water supply, sunny exposure vs. shade exposure, and other such factors, but, as Müller noted, this is an unusually broad range of variation and more detailed study is needed to test whether this is all phenotypic variation within a single species (Jardim et al., in prep).