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Vitis rotundifolia Michx.
Muscadine
Muscadine Grape
Florida native
A common high-climbing vine of wet to dry hammocks in all of Florida. The range extends throughout the southeast, west into Texas, Oklahoma and missouri, and north into Kentucky, West Virginia, Maryland and Delware.
Of the grapevines in Florida, muscadine is the only one with unbranched tendrils. The alternate simple leaves are heart-shaped with petioles that are about as long as the blade whixch is nearly the same as the width. The dentate leaves are most often pointed, but sometimes the points are somewhat rounded. Leaves are glabrous on top and the undersides may or may not have hairs but never have a white cast. The small inconspicuous flowers appear in branched clusters. The fruit is a berry up to 2.5cm (~1 inch) in diameter, usually purplish to black, but sometimes golden-green.
There are three varieties of Vitis rotundifolia in Florida. Variety munsoniana is found primarily in the peninsula and has smaller berries that are purple-black, without lenticels, only 1cm (4/10 in.) wide and in bunches typically numbering 12 to 30. V. rotundifolia var. rotundifolia is more prevalent in the panhandle and has larger bronze-purple berries (greater than 1.5cm or 6/10 in.) with lenticels and in bunches of only 2 to 8. Var. pygmaea is only found in Highlands and Polk County scrub habitats and is characterized by having smaller leaves that are only 2-3.5cm (3/4 to 1-3/8 in.) wide.
Vitis rotundifolia is a member of the Vitaceae - Grape family.
Other species of the Vitis genus in the Wild Florida Photo database:
Vitis aestivalis - SUMMER GRAPE
Vitis cinerea var. floridana - FLORIDA GRAPE
Atlas of Florida Vascular Plants (Institute for Systemic Botany) profile for this species
iNaturalist profile for this species
USDA Plant Profile for this species
Date record last modified: Apr 09, 2025
