BUSH GRAPE
|
 |
| File Size: 112 KB |
|
|
|
Vitis acerifolia Raf.
|
| Clark County, Kansas |
| Height: Vines, to 20 feet |
| Family: Vitaceae - Grape family |
| Flowering Period: May, June |
|
| Trunks: | | 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. | | Habitat: | | Rocky prairie slopes and ravines, rocky bluffs, stream banks. | | Distribution: | | West 1/2 of Kansas | | Origin: | | Native | | Comments: | | Vitis acerifolia can form dense thickets that provide cover for many species of wildlife. Unlike our other grape species, which are often high-climbing, bush grape tends to be a low, busy vine. |
|
| Bush grape habit |  | | 138 KB | | Clark County, Kansas |
| | Bush grape leaf |  | | 114 KB | | Clark County, Kansas |
| | Bush grape leaf |  | | 127 KB | | Clark County, Kansas |
| | Bush grape flowers |  | | 140 KB | | Clark County, Kansas |
| |
|
|
|
