Vitis L.

Climbing, polygamo-dioecious shrubs; bark usually shreddy; tendrils leaf-opposed, usually bifurcate. Leaves simple, often lobed, petiolate. Inflorescences leaf-opposed, paniculate; peduncles sometimes cirrhiferous. Flowers both bisexual and unisexual. Calyx saucer-shaped, subtruncate or 5-dentate. Petals 5, connate at apex, separating at base and falling off as a calyptra. Stamens 5, straight in male and bisexual flowers; staminodes reflexed in female flowers. Disc usually ring-shaped. Ovary pitcher-shaped; style conical, short; stigma small; gynoecium rudimentary in male flowers. Berries globular, succulent, purple to black, whitish to bronze or greenish, 2-4 -seeded. Seeds pyriform, shiny; adaxial surface 2-furrowed; abaxial surface 1-furrowed with a prominent rounded or elliptic chalazal knot; endosperm T-shaped in cross section.

In temperate and tropical regions of the Northern Hemisphere, mainly centred in China and eastern N. America; ca 60 species, 3 in India.

KEY TO THE SPECIES

1a. Leaves nearly glabrous; inflorescences 3-7 cm long

1. Vitis flexuosa

b. Leaves tomentose; inflorescences 7-15 cm long

2

2a. Lower surface of leaves with lax, greyish to greyish brown tomentum; seeds with charaza depressed or indistinctly raised at the bottom of depression on the abaxial side

2. Vitis heyneana

b. Lower surface of leaves with dense, reddish floccose tomentum; seeds with raised chalaza on the abaxial side

3. Vitis jacquemontii

List of Lower Taxa