Tropicos | Name - !Vitis L.

!Vitis L.

Flora Data (Last Modified On 3/27/2013)

Genus	Vitis L.
PlaceOfPublication	Sp. P1. 202, 1753.
Description	Woody vines, deciduous, rarely evergreen, scandent or climbing by tendrils borne opposite the leaves or arising from the peduncles, the bark often shredding and falling away, the pith usually interrupted by nodal diaphragms, brown; tendrils usually branched, rarely simple. Leaves simple or palmately compound, often lobed, usually rounded and cordate, dentate. Inflorescence a panicle. Flowers pedicellate, usually umbellate clustered, polygamodioecious, some plants with per- fect flowers, others staminate with a rudimentary ovary, 5-merous; calyx cupular, fused with an entire or shallowly lobed margin; petals fused at the apex to form a deciduous cap; stamens 5, the hypogynous disk of 5 ? free or connate glands alternate with the stamens and adnate to the base of the ovary, lobed; ovary bicarpellate. the style short, conical, the stigma usually shallowly bilobed, the carpels 2-celled. Fruit baccate, usually edible, pulpy, 2-4-seeded, the seeds usually pyriform and narrowly rostrate basally.
Habit	vines
Distribution	A genus of 60-70 species, mostly of the temperate regions of the northern hemisphere. Two species are found in Panama, V. vinifera, the common cultivated grape which has been occasionally planted and the native V. tiliifolia which occurs throughout Middle America.