Catbird or red grape Catbird or red grape

Vitis rubra Michaux ex Planchon

Plants high climbing, sparsely branched. Branches: bark exfoliating in shreds; nodal diaphragms 2.5–4 mm thick; branchlets uniformly red, purplish red, or chestnut, subterete, glabrous or very sparsely arachnoid, growing tips not enveloped by unfolding leaves; tendrils red-pigmented when young, along length of branchlets, persistent, branched, tendrils (or inflorescences) at only 2 consecutive nodes; nodes not red-banded. Leaves: stipules 1.5–3 mm; petiole somewhat shorter than blade; blade usually cordate, 8–14 cm, usually deeply 3(–5)-lobed, apex long acuminate, abaxial surface not glaucous, glabrous, visible, veins and vein axils sometimes hirtellous, adaxial surface glabrous. Inflorescences 6–18 cm. Flowers functionally unisexual. Berries bluish black to black, slightly or not glaucous, globose, 8–10 mm diam., skin separating from pulp; lenticels absent. 2n = 38.

Flowering mid Jun–early Jul; fruiting Aug–Oct. Riverbanks, sloughs, alluvial floodplain woodlands; 0–200 m; Ala., Ark., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Ky., La., Miss., Mo., Okla., Tenn., Tex.

Reports of Vitis palmata from Virginia (for example, in A. S. Weakley et al. 2012) appear to be based on misidentified material of V. vulpina with somewhat lobed leaves.