Bush grape

Images

Click on image to view full size

Bush grape

Bush grape leaf

Bush grape habit

Bush grape leaf

Bush grape flowers

Morphology

Trunk

Dioecious; stems clambering or spreading, rarely climbing; branch tips enveloped by unfolding leaves, tendrils deciduous, simple or short-branched; bark reddish brown, tardily exfoliating in thin plates or thin strips on older stems; wood white, soft.

Twigs

Reddish brown to gray, rigid, tomentose, becoming glabrous with age; leaf scars oval; buds ovoid, .08 to .16 inch, apex obtuse, scales tomentose at least apically.

Leaves

Deciduous, alternate, simple; stipules caducous, .2 to .28 inch; petiole .8 to 2 inches, arachnoid with white hairs, usually becoming glabrous with age; blade nearly round to broadly triangular-ovate, 2.4 to 4 inches long, 3.2 to 4.4 inches wide, base cordate, margins irregularly and coarsely dentate, unlobed or shallowly 3-lobed, apex acute to acuminate, lower surface grayish green, arachnoid with white hairs, especially along veins, not glaucous, upper surface green or yellowish green, arachnoid with white hairs, becoming glabrous with age.

Flowers

Inflorescences opposite leaves on new growth, thyrses, 20-150-flowered, spreading, 1.2 to 3 inches; peduncle .4 to 1.6 inches, cobwebby, becoming glabrous with age; pedicels .1 to .2 inch, cobwebby or glabrous. Flowers unisexual, radially symmetric; sepals 5, connate, lobes green, reduced to an obscure rim; petals 5, connate distally, white, ovate, .07 to .08 inch; staminate: stamens 5, to .1 inch; pistillate: pistil 1; style 1; stigma 1, lobed.

Fruit

July-August; berries, black, globose, .3 to .5 inch diam., smooth, strongly glaucous, glabrous, flesh not milky; seeds 2-4, tan or brown, broadly ovoid, .2 to .25 inch long, .14 to .16 inch thick, smooth.

Ecology

Habitat

Rocky prairie slopes and ravines, rocky bluffs, stream banks.

Distribution

West 1/2 of Kansas

Additional Notes