Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

WOODBINE

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Parthenocissus vitacea (Knerr ) Hitchc.

Mitchell County, Kansas

Height: Vine, to 32-50 feet

Family: Vitaceae - Grape Family

Flowering Period: May, June, July

Also Called:

Thicket creeper.

Trunks:

Stems climbing or clambering; tendrils 2-5-branched, terminal adhesive disks absent, rarely present; bark brown, adherent, fissures shallow, ridges short; wood light brown, soft.

Twigs:

Grayish brown to brown, flexible, glabrous, older twigs usually without adventitious roots; leaf scars half-round; buds reddish brown, ovoid, .08 to .12 inch, apex obtuse to acute, scales glabrous.

Leaves:

Deciduous, alternate, palmately compound; petiole 3.2 to 6 inches, glabrous; leaflets 5(-6), elliptic to obovate, 1.6 to 4 inches long, .8 to 2 inches wide, base wedge-shaped, margins coarsely serrate, apex acuminate, lower surface light green, glabrous or minutely pubescent along veins, upper surface shiny dark green, glabrous or sparsely minutely pubescent along veins.

Flowers:

Inflorescences opposite leaves on new growth, corymb-like cymes, without distinct central axis, 15-75-flowered, spreading, 2.4 to 4.8 inches; peduncle 1.2 to 2.8 inches, glabrous; pedicels .12 to .16 inch, glabrous. Flowers bisexual, radially symmetric; sepals 5, connate, lobes green, indistinct; calyx saucer-shaped; petals 5, distinct, yellowish green or reddish green, elliptic to oblong, .12 to .14; stamens 5, to .12 inch; pistil 1; style 1; stigma 1, unlobed.

Fruit:

August-September; berries, dark blue or purplish black, depressed-spherical, .24 to .35 inch long, .3 to .4 inch wide, smooth, glaucous, glabrous; peduncle and pedicels turning red; seeds 2-4, brown, ovoid, .18 to 24 inch long, minutely granular.

Habitat:

Rocky woodlands, thickets, bluffs, ravines, stream banks, fencerows.

Distribution:

Scattered throughout Kansas

Origin:

Native

Woodbine leaf