Plants polygamo-dioecious. Branchlets prickly or tuberculately so, terete, with longitudinal ridges when young, glabrescent; tendrils bifurcate. Stipules greenish brown, ovate-lanceolate, 2-3 × 1-2 mm, nearly herbaceous, glabrous, caducous; leaf blade oval or oval-elliptic, undivided or shallowly 3-lobed, 5-12 × 4-16 cm, basal veins 5, lateral veins 4 or 5 pairs, veinlets conspicuous and raised, base deeply cordate, margin with 12-33 teeth on each side, teeth sharp, apex acute or mucronate. Panicle leaf-opposed, 7-24 cm, with well-developed basal branches; peduncle 1-2.5 cm, glabrous. Pedicel 1-2 mm, glabrous. Buds obovoid, 1.2-1.5 mm, apex rounded. Sepals minute. Filaments filiform; anthers yellow, elliptic, 0.6-0.7 mm. Ovary conical; style short; stigma expanded. Berry globose, 1.2-2.5 cm in diam. Seeds obovoid-elliptic, apex rounded and obtuse, ventral holes furrowed upward 3/4 from base. Fl. Apr-Jun, fr. Jul-Oct.

Vitis davidii var. hispida X. D. Wang & S. C. Chen (Acta Phytotax. Sin. 37: 603. 1999), described from Fujian, could not be treated here because no material was seen by the authors.

● Forests, shrublands, hillsides, valleys; 500-2300 m. Anhui, Chongqing, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Yunnan, Zhejiang.