Viridivia is a monotypic genus of flowering plants belonging to the family Passifloraceae. It only contain one known species, Viridivia suberosa.[1] It is also in the subfamily Passifloroideae and tribe Paropsieae.[2] [3]
It is native to Zambia and Tanzania. It grows within woodland on rocky outcrops.[4]
It is a small tree that can grow up to 8m (26feet) tall. It has older branches with longitudinally fissured cork-like bark. The young branches are spattered with short, stiff golden-yellow or brown hairs. It has bisexual flowers, which appear before leaves grow. The flower are dense racemes at the end of short branches. They have 4 sepals, which are imbricate (overlapping), sericeous silky with dense appressed hairs) on the outside and 3–7-nerved (or veined). It has 4 petals which are smaller than the sepals and 1-nerved. The corona is a short tubular shape, irregularly fimbriate (fringed) and with clavate (club shaped) whitish glands. It has 10-16 stamens, with the filaments (stamen stalks) free and hairy. The anthers are oblong shaped. It has a globose (round-like shaped) ovary which is stipitate (stalked) with 1-locular (or compartment). It has 4–6 styles with fleshy, kidney-shaped stigmas. It has about 50 ovules. The seed capsule is subglobose shaped and stipitate. Inside the capsule, the seeds are ovoid, compressed, included in a cupulate (cup-shaped) aril (seed coating).[4]
In Zambia, it is commonly known as 'mulyansefu'.[4]
The genus name of Viridivia is in honour of Percy James Greenway (1897–1980), South African botanist at the agricultural research station and herbarium in Nairobi, Kenya.[5] Note, the Latin for Green is viridis.[6] The Neo-Latin specific epithet of suberosa means cork-like. Both the genus and the species were first described and published in Hooker's Icon. Pl. Vol.36 on table 3555 in 1956.[1]