well delimited and easily recognized. The genera
are delimited by floral morphology, inflorescence types and
sometimes seed morphology (Chen and Manchester, 2007).
Leeaceae was formerly a part of the Vitaceae in the
subfamily Leeoideae but due to morphological differences
is now placed in it is own family (Steven, 2000). Members
of this family which has approximately 70 species are
mostly shrubs, small trees, scramblers, or rarely large
perennial herbs bearing terminal inflorescences with
hermaphroditic flowers and distinct wood anatomical
characters (Wen, 2007b). Stems of Leeaceae are unarmed
or with rows of prickles but with an absence of tendrils
unlike Vitaceae (Chen et al., 2007; Wen, 2007b). This study
was undertaken to investigate the anatomical difference in
leaves of selected species in the Vitaceae and Leeaceae in
order to see whether sterile specimens can be used to
identify the families.