Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

GRAYBARK GRAPE

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Vitis cinerea Engelm.

Konza Prairie, Riley County, Kansas

Height: Vines to 50 feet long

Family: Vitaceae - Grape Family

Flowering Period: May, June, July

Trunks:

Stems climbing; branches unarmed, tips not enveloped by unfolding leaves, tendrils persistent, usually branched, sometimes simple; bark reddish brown, exfoliating in long, thin strips; wood light brown, soft.

Twigs:

Grayish brown, flexible, floccose; leaf scars crescent-shaped to ovate; pith brown; buds cone-shaped, .08 to .12 inch, apex obtuse to acute, scales tomentose, at least distally.

Leaves:

Deciduous, alternate, simple; petiole 2.8 to 4 inches, floccose or arachnoid and hirtellous; blade cordate to broadly ovate, 2.4 to 8 inches long, 1.6 to 6 inches wide, base cordate, margins irregularly dentate, usually unlobed, sometimes shallowly 3-lobed, apex acuminate, lower surfaces grayish green, arachnoid and hirtellous with white hairs, not glaucous, upper surfaces dark green, glabrous, glabrate, or sparsely floccose with white hairs.

Flowers:

Inflorescences opposite leaves on new growth, thyrses, 50-200-flowered, spreading or lax, 2.4 to 6 inches; peduncle .8 to 3.2 inches, floccose to arachnoid; pedicels .08 to .12 inch, arachnoid. Flowers dioecious; unisexual, radially symmetric; sepals 5, connate, lobes green, reduced to an obscure rim; petals 5, connate distally, white, oblong to elliptic, ca. .1 inch; staminate: stamens 5, to .12 inch; pistillate: pistil 1, ovary superior, 2-locular; style 1; stigma 1, lobed.

Fruit:

September-October; berries, dark purple to black, globose, .2 to .35 inch diam., smooth, slightly glaucous, glabrous, flesh not milky; seeds 1-2, reddish brown, broadly ovoid, .16 to .2 inch, smooth.

Habitat:

Floodplain and upland forests, stream banks, wooded hillsides, thickets.

Distribution:

East 2/5 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Comments:

Vitis cinerea produces relatively small fruits that mature in the late fall. The species is highly variable across its range.

Graybark grape leaf