Parthenocissus quinquefolia

Native

Moist. Woods.

June to July

Greenish

Up to 1′ when a ground cover

This is a perennial, woody vine.

Stems are reddish brown and lightly hairy when young, becoming dark brown and woody with age. They can extend up to 30′. They can climb trees, shrubs, and fences, but are more often found sprawling on the ground, creating a ground cover.

The leaves are alternate and on long leaf stalks. They are divided into 5 leaflets radiating from a common point. The leaflets are 2⅓″ to 4¾″ long, 1½″ to 2½″ wide, inversely egg-shaped with the attachment at the wide end, with a wedge-shaped base and a pointed tip. The upper surface is glossy green and hairless. The lower surface is paler and hairless or with hairs along the main veins. The margins are sharply toothed from the tip almost to the base. The leaves turn bright red to purplish red in the fall.

Tendrils emerge from the stem opposite from the leaves on climbing plants. They have many branches and sticky pads at the tips that allow them to adhere to smooth surfaces. Tendrils do not occur on plants that sprawl but do not climb.

The inflorescences emerge opposite from the leaves of the current year’s growth. It has a zigzag central axis and 25 to 200 flowers per inflorescence.

The flowers are about ¼″ across with 5 greenish petals.

The fruit is a spherical berry with thin flesh and 1 to 4 seeds.

Woodbine (Parthenocissus vitacea) has tendrils with few branches. The tendrils have twining tips and do not have adhesive disks at the tips. The leaflets are shiny green above. The leaf margins are toothed mostly above the middle, untoothed near the base. The inflorescence is widely forked creating 2 (sometimes 3) divergent clusters, each of which is forked again—it has no central axis. It is usually in more open areas.

Sources: 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8.

BONAP shows this species distributed throughout the state. All other sources show a much more restricted range in only the eastern half of the state. The map at left does not include the BONAP data.