Cocculus pendulus (J.R. Forst. & G. Forst.) Diels
Epilaterium pendulum J.R. Forst. & G. Forst., C. leoeba DC.
Ara.: Trak, trek, tadlar, irk, kebats, lebakh el djebel, labakh el gabal, turach, erdjadj, olleiq, zigai (Sudan). Tamahaq: Amatelte, amateltel, amataltal, anataeltal, attala, lehuaïl, aemul, emil.
Lianescent plant, dioecious, with woody stems, usually grows on trees, shrubs and rocks. Main trunk 15 cm in diameter, with greyish bark fissured longitudinally. Branches thin, striated and usually overhanging. Branchlets green, glaucous, very thin. Leaves (0.5-6.5 × 0.25-3 cm) alternate, in young plants they are 3-5 lobed and ± pubescent, as the plant matures the leaves are oval or oval-lanceolate and glabrous, margin entire, fairly fleshy; petiole 1-7 mm. Flowers very small in axillary cymes, greenish-yellow, pedicellate, with 6 sepals and 6 petals. Male flowers, with 6 stamens, born in small groups in the leaf axils. Female flowers with 3 carpels, always solitary in the leaf axils. Fruit (5-7 mm) a solitary drupe, geminate or ternate, on a single peduncle, obovate, red in colour.
Flowering:
February to July.
Fruiting:
Spring to summer. Both flowering and fruiting can often be seen simultaneously on the same plant.
Habitat:
On diverse terrains, sandy, rocky, in depressions and low parts of slopes, often on trees and rocks. In desert and subdesert zones.
Distribution:
From the Atlantic Ocean (Cape Verde Islands) to India. In North Africa it is uncommon but it grows here and there throughout the western and eastern Sahara, in the central Sahara is rarer but is also present (Ugarta, Tassili N’Ajjer, Ahaggar Mountains).
Observations:
This species can become very common in the southern Sahara. Thus, Schmitt (1912), speaking of the abundance of this species in Mauritania said “Very abundant in some places, where it completely covers all the trees (e.g. in Chigi, southeast of Adrar)“. Another plant of this family is Tinospora bakis (A. Rich.) Miers, of tropical distribution and reaching sporadically S to Mauritania. It is a climbing plant that can reach 10 meters, differentiated by its cordate, wider and membranous leaves, with twisted petioles at the base (while Cocculus has considerably smaller and ± lanceolate leaves, not membranous and not twisted at the petiole).
Conservation status:
Not a common species but widely distributed. Currently, they are not assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.