Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

CUPSEED

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Calycocarpum lyonii (Pursh ) A. Gray

Schermerhorn Park, Cherokee County, Kansas

Height: Vines, to 50+ feet

Family: Menispermaceae - Moonseed Family

Flowering Period: May, June

Trunks:

Dioecious; stems climbing or clambering; branches unarmed, without tendrils; bark greenish brown to brown, finely ridged; wood white, soft.

Twigs:

Yellowish brown, flexible, finely ridged, glabrous or tomentose; leaf scars ovate; buds reddish brown, ovoid, .04 to .06 inch, apex rounded, scales glabrous.

Leaves:

Deciduous, alternate, simple; petiole attached at base of blade, 2.4 to 6 inches long, glabrous; blade pentagonal to broadly ovate, 2.8 to 8 inches long, 3.2 to 7.2 inches wide, base cordate, margins 3-5-lobed, lobes ovate, margins entire or coarsely dentate, apex acuminate, sinuses shallow to deep, lower surface light yellowish green, sparsely hispid, upper surface yellowish green, glabrous.

Flowers:

Inflorescences on new growth, racemes or panicles, (5-)10-80-flowered, lax, 3.2 to 5.6 inches; peduncles .6 to 3.2 inches; pedicels .03 to 1 inch, finely woolly. Flowers unisexual, more or less radially symmetric; sepals 6-9, distinct, lobes white, elliptic, .11 to .15 inch, spreading; petals absent; staminate flowers: stamens 6-12, to .12 inch long; pistillate flowers: staminodes 6-many; pistils 3; style absent; stigma deeply lobed, flattened.

Fruit:

September-October; drupes, green to yellowish green or bluish black, ovoid to ellipsoid, .6 to 1 inch long, .4 to .8 inch wide, smooth, glabrous, shiny; stone 1, yellowish brown, cup-shaped, .63 to .75 inch long, .52 to .55 inch wide, rim sharply dentate.

Habitat:

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

Distribution:

Southeast corner of Kansas

Origin:

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

Comments:

Stems of cupseed are only slightly woody at the base; they often die back to the ground or almost to the ground in the winter. The stones, from which the species gets its common name, are distinctive and unlike any other species of flowering plant in Kansas.

Cupseed leaves