2. Vitis cinerea (Engelm.) Engelm. ex Millardet var. cinerea (graybark grape, sweet winter grape, pigeon grape)

Pl. 581 a, b; Map 2718

Young stems slightly to moderately angled, moderately to densely pubescent with short, straight, spreading hairs at flowering and also with sparse to dense cobwebby hairs, green, gray, or brown, the nodes not glaucous, but sometimes reddish-tinged. Pith interrupted at the nodes, the diaphragms 1–3 mm wide on new growth, eventually thickening to 2–4 mm wide on older branches. Older stems with the bark shredding, not appearing warty. Tendrils common, present at no more than 2 adjacent nodes (every third node lacking both a tendril and an inflorescence), 2- or 3-branched. Leaves with the petiole 2/3 as long to about as long as the blades, moderately to densely hairy at flowering time. Leaf blades mostly 5–22 cm long, mostly longer than wide, ovate to broadly ovate or nearly circular in outline, flat or slightly convex at maturity, unlobed or shallowly to less commonly deeply 3-lobed, the sinuses mostly U-shaped, the lobes usually tapered or narrowed to a sharply pointed tip, the upper surface glabrous or minutely hairy, usually not shiny. Undersurface of young leaves moderately to densely pubescent with light gray to gray (rarely brownish-tinged) cobwebby hairs that are more or less appressed to the surface, these persistent but often becoming sparser (or occasionally appearing nearly glabrous) at maturity; shorter, straight, more or or less spreading hairs usually also present along the veins but the undersurface not glaucous. Inflorescences at no more than 2 adjacent nodes, 10–25 cm long, narrowly to broadly pyramid-shaped. Fruits mostly more than 25 per infructescence, 4–8 mm in diameter, the surface with lenticels few and inconspicuous or absent, black, not or only slightly glaucous. Seeds 2–4 mm long, brown. 2n=38. May–July.

Common in the southern 2/3 of Missouri, but absent from portions of the Glaciated Plains Division (Indiana to Florida west to Nebraska and Texas). Bottomland forests, mesic upland forests, banks of streams and rivers, and margins of ponds and lakes; also fencerows, old fields, roadsides, and railroads.

Moore (1991) accepted a complex series of four varieites within V. cinerea. Of these, the least widely distributed is the Texas endemic, var. helleri (L.H. Bailey) M.O. Moore, with its strongly glaucous berries and relatively small nearly glabrous leaves. The var. floridana Munson is restricted to the Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plains (Maryland to Louisiana), and var. baileyana (Munson) Comeaux is widespread in the eastern United States (west to Indiana and Mississippi); both of these weakly separable taxa differ from var. cinerea in the absence of near absence of short straight spreading hairs on the branchlets and leaves, differing from each other in the density of cobwebby pubescence.