Common moonseed

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Common moonseed fruit

Common moonseed seeds

Common moonseed fruit

Common moonseed habit

Common moonseed leaf

Common moonseed habit

Common moonseed

Common moonseed inflorescence

Common moonseed bud and scar

Morphology

Trunk

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.

Ecology

Habitat

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

Distribution

East 2/3 of Kansas

Practical Information

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.