Plants perennial herbs, lianas, or shrubs, erect or climbing, sometimes succulent, nearly always with leaf-opposed tendrils. Leavs simple, entire, lobed, or digitaely compound with 3-7 leaflets. Inflorescences usually of solitary, axillary flowers in the axil often the tendrils, sometimes in terminal or axillary cymes; Flowers 4-merous, conical or ovoid in bud, not constricted in the middle; calyces entire or 4-lobed; petals becoming deflexed, deciduous; annular disk present, entire or lobe, adnate to the ovary; style simple, cylindric or cylindric-conic, stigma subulate to subcapitate. Fruits beaked, sometimes with a dorsal crest and 2 ventral pits.
Cissus has about 250 species that are found in all tropical regions with some species extending into the subtropics. There are 8 species in Somaliland and Somalia.
Note: GBIF records include introduced and cultivated plants. Consequently, the distribution shown often differs from statements about a taxon's native distribution.
Xiu-Qun Liu, Stefanie M. Ickert-Bond, Long-Qing Chen, Jun Wen (2013) Molecular phylogeny of Cissus L. of Vitaceae (the grape family) and evolution of its pantropical intercontinental disjunctions. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 66(1): 43-53. ISSN 1055-7903, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2012.09.003.