LSU AgCenter's Weekly Message

Native Grapes: Muscadines and More

We regularly see muscadine grape (Vitis rotundifolia) vines in Louisiana. Their commonness and vigorous growth (often far up into trees) are signs of how well adapted they are to most parts of our state. I encourage people who are interested in growing fruit that doesn’t require a lot of work to manage diseases and insects to grow muscadines, though a sturdy trellis and attention to training and pruning are needed. Many improved varieties are available.

We occasionally see fruit on wild muscadine vines in the late summer, but many wild vines only have male flowers and so don’t produce berries. Cultivated varieties have either “perfect” flowers (ones with female and male parts) or female flowers. In the latter case, the vine needs a self-fertile, perfect-flowered vine or a wild male vine nearby to pollinize it.

Muscadines aren’t the only grapes that we see growing in the wild. Other grapes native to Louisiana include the summer grape (V. aestivalis), graybark or winter sweet grape (V. cinerea), frost or fox grape (V. vulpina), and riverbank or frost grape (V. riparia). (As usual, common names can be confusing, with the same name sometimes applied to different species.) These other grapes are more closely related to each other than they are to muscadines.

Smooth, heart-shaped leaves with teeth of similar sizes along the edges often suggest to us that a grape vine is a muscadine. However, some other species have leaves that look similar. Grapes hanging in bunches rather than loose clusters are a clue that a vine isn’t a muscadine, but vines often lack fruit.

An easy and reliable way to differentiate between muscadines and native bunch grapes is by the vine’s tendrils. The tendril is what wraps around limbs and trellis wires and allows grapes to climb. Most grape species have forked tendrils, but muscadine vines’ tendrils are unbranched.

All grapes (Vitis species) are technically edible, though you might not enjoy eating some of them. Besides the fruit, young grape leaves can be used to make dishes like the dolmas of Mediterranean cuisine.

Let me know if you have questions.

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Dr. Mary Helen Ferguson is an Extension Agent with the LSU AgCenter, with horticulture responsibilities in Washington and Tangipahoa Parishes. Contact Mary Helen at mhferguson@agcenter.lsu.edu or 985-277-1850 (Hammond) or 985-839-7855 (Franklinton).