Flora of the Venezuelan Guayana << Back BIGNONIACEAE 10. CYDISTA Miers, Proc. Roy. Hort. Soc. London 3: 191. 1863. Lianas, the branchlets terete to tetragonal, without interpetiolar glandular fields; pseudostipules foliaceous or absent. Leaves simple or 2-foliolate, sometimes with a simple tendril. Inflorescence an axillary or terminal raceme or few-flowered panicle. Calyx cupular, truncate or irregularly and shallowly bilabiate, lepidote to puberulous or subhirsute; corolla white to magenta, tubular-funnel-shaped, ± lepidote and sometimes inconspicuously puberulous outside. Anthers glabrous, the the-cae straight, divaricate. Ovary narrowly cylindric, lepidote or ± puberulous. Ovules 2-seriate in each locule; disk absent or vestigial. Fruit a compressed, linear capsule, the valves parallel to the septum, the midline inconspicuous. Seeds flat, 2-winged, the wings thin, brown, sometimes subhyaline at the extreme tip, not clearly demarcated from seed body. Mexico and the West Indies south to Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay; 6 species, 3 in Venezuela, 2 of these in the flora area. The species of Cydista are characterized by the lack of a nectariferous disk and are associated with the "multiple-bang" flowering syndrome. Key to the Species of Cydista 1. Inflorescence corymbose-paniculate, the central axis not well-developed; leaflets with glandular fields in the axils of many of the secondary veins below; branchlets terete to nearly tetragonal; capsule linear or linear-oblong, less than 2.5 cm wide ..... C. aequinoctialis 1. Inflorescence racemose-paniculate with a well-developed central axis; leaflets with glands only in axils of basal pair of lateral veins below; branchlets terete; capsule oblong, > 3 cm wide ..... C. lilacina Cydista aequinoctialis (L.) Miers, Proc. Roy. Hort. Soc. London 3: 191. 1863. -Bignonia aequinoctialis L., Sp. Pl. 623. 1753. -Ameda (Yekwana), Bejuco barquiz blanco, Jootake (Yekwana). Bignonia picta H.B.K., Nov. Gen. Sp. (quarto ed.) 3: 136. 1818 [1819]. Liana. Flooded to nonflooded evergreen lowland to montane forests, 50-900 m; widespread in Delta Amacuro, Bolívar, and Amazonas. Widespread elsewhere in Venezuela; Mexico and the West Indies south to Brazil and Bolivia. Fig. 369. Cydista lilacina A.H. Gentry, Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 29: 277. 1978. Liana. Nonflooded evergreen lowland forests, 100-300 m; Delta Amacuro (Serranía de Imataca), northern Bolívar, Amazonas (Río Mawarinuma, San Juan de Manapiare). Barinas, Sucre; Colombia, Suriname, Ecuador, Amazonian Brazil, Bolivia. Fig. 370. TOP Scientific Comments: Paul Berry (peberry@facstaff.wisc.edu) or Kay Yatskievych (kay.yatskievych@mobot.org).