Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

COMMON MOONSEED

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Menispermum canadense L.

Marion County, Kansas

Height: Vines, to 26 feet

Family: Menispermaceae - Moonseed Family

Flowering Period: May, June

Trunks:

Dioecious; stems climbing or clambering; branches unarmed, without tendrils; bark reddish brown to brown or grayish brown, warty; wood white, soft.

Twigs:

Reddish brown, flexible, finely ridged, glabrous, glabrate, or sparsely fine-woolly; leaf scars round to elliptic; buds greenish brown, depressed-globose, .04 to .06 inch, apex rounded, scales glabrous.

Leaves:

Deciduous, alternate, simple; stipules absent; petiole attached a short distance inside edge of blade, 2–20 cm, glabrous, glabrate, or sparsely fine-woolly; blade ovate to orbiculate or reniform, 2 to 5.6 inches long, 1.2 to 7.2 inches wide, base cordate, margins entire or shallowly 3- to 7-lobed, lobes broadly deltate, apex rounded to obtuse, rarely acute, lower surface light green, sparsely to densely fine-woolly, upper surface green, glabrous, glabrate, or sparsely fine-woolly, primarily near veins.

Flowers:

Inflorescences on new growth, panicles, 5-50-flowered, lax, 1.6 to 7.2 inches; peduncles .6 to 2.8 inches; pedicels .08 to .3 inch, sparsely fine-woolly. Flowers unisexual, more or less radially symmetric; sepals (4-)5-8, distinct, lobes green, ovate to elliptic or obovate, .04 to .16 inch, spreading to ascending; petals 4-12, distinct, white, elliptic to obovate, .04 to .08 inch, spreading to ascending; staminate flowers: stamens 18-20, to .16 inch; pistillate flowers: staminodes 6-9; pistils 2-4; style 1 per pistil; stigma 2-lobed.

Fruit:

July–October; drupes, dark blue to bluish black, globose to obovoid, .24 to .4 inch diam., smooth, glabrous, glaucous; stone 1, tan or yellow, discoid, crescent-shaped, .24 to .3 inch, rim with ridged crest, sides concave.

Habitat:

Floodplain and upland forests, stream banks, shaded ledges, bluffs, ravines, woodlands, thickets.

Distribution:

East 2/3 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Toxicity:

. In its habit and fruits, Menispermum canadense superficially resembles a grape, but unlike grapes, all parts of common moonseed are poisonous (Stephens 1980).

Uses:

Menispermum canadense was used as a medicinal plant by several Native American tribes.

Common moonseed leaf