RACCOON-GRAPE
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| File Size: 74 KB |
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Ampelopsis cordata Michx.
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| Konza Prairie, Riley County, Kansas |
| Height: Vines to 35 feet long |
| Family: Vitaceae - Grape Family |
| Flowering Period: May, June, July |
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| Also Called: | | False-grape. | | Trunks: | | Stems climbing or clambering; branches unarmed, tendrils long, branched; bark reddish brown to brown, fissured, ridges long; wood white, soft. | | Twigs: | | Green or yellowish green, flexible, glabrous; leaf scars crescent-shaped to nearly round; pith white; buds concealed beneath bark. | | Leaves: | | Deciduous, alternate, simple; petiole 1.2 to 2.4 inches, glabrous or sparsely pubescent distally; blade ovate, 2.8 to 4.4 inches long, 2.4 to 3.6 inches wide, base truncate to nearly cordate, margins irregularly and coarsely serrate, unlobed or shallowly 3-lobed, apex acute to acuminate, lower surfaces light green, sparsely pubescent along veins, upper surfaces green to yellowish green, glabrous. | | Flowers: | | Inflorescences opposite leaves on new growth, cymes, 30-140-flowered, spreading, 1.6 to 4.8 inches; peduncle .8 to 2.4 inches, glabrous; pedicels .12 to .16 inch, glabrous. Flowers bisexual, radially symmetric; sepals 5, connate, lobes green to greenish white, indistinct, reduced to a minute rim; petals 5, distinct, white or green, ovate, .08 to .1 inch; stamens 5, to .1 inch; pistil 1, ovary superior, 2-locular; style 1; stigma 1, lobed. | | Fruit: | | August-September; berries, initially green, turning orange, pink, and eventually turquoise-blue, depressed-globose, .28 to .4 inch diam., pustular-dotted, not glaucous, glabrous, flesh milky; seeds 1-4, reddish brown to yellowish brown, broadly ovoid to more or less spherical, .18 to .2 inch, 2-groved adaxially, ridged medially across distal end. | | Habitat: | | Rocky wooded hillsides, stream valleys, thickets, fencerows. | | Distribution: | | East 2/3 of Kansas | | Origin: | | Native | | Comments: | | Ampelopsis cordata is sometimes mistaken for a Vitis, but the turquoise, pink, or orange fruits in cymose clusters and leaf blades with truncate or semicordate bases readily distinguish it from our grape species. The Cherokee took an infusion of bark for urinary problems. |
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| Raccoon-grape fruit |  | | 38 KB | | Konza Prairie, Riley County, Kansas |
| | Raccoon-grape bark |  | | 67 KB | | Konza Prairie, Riley County, Kansas |
| | Raccoon-grape leaf |  | | 75 KB | | Konza Prairie, Riley County, Kansas |
| | Raccoon-grape habit |  | | 100 KB | | Geary County, Kansas |
| | Raccoon-grape leaves |  | | 87 KB | | Craig Freeman photo; location unknown |
| | Raccoon-grape flowers |  | | 73 KB | | Craig Freeman photo; location unknown |
| | Raccoon-grape fruit |  | | 44 KB | | Bourbon County, Kansas |
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