A critically endangered beauty: The passion flower Passiflora kwangtungensis
Passiflora is a genus of beautiful plants commonly known as the passion flowers or passion vines. The most famous representative of this group is the passion fruit, favorite to many. Passiflora contains around 530 species with native ranges throughout the southern United States and Mexico as well as Central and South America. In addition, there are 24 species of Passiflora endemic to the Old World. In China, the native Passiflora exhibit high levels of endemism, seldomly display overlapping distributions, and are in general extremely rare. A new study published in the open access journal Phytokeys provides a morphological revision of the beautiful Chinese species Passiflora kwangtungensis and raises concerns towards its current conservation status.