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Vitis

Genus of flowering plants in the grape family

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  • 7 chapters

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Most cultivated Vitis varieties are wind-pollinated with hermaphroditic flowers containing both male and female reproductive structures, while wild species are dioecious. These flowers are grouped in bunches called inflorescences. In many species, such as Vitis vinifera, each successfully pollinated flower becomes a grape berry with the inflorescence turning into a cluster of grapes. While the flowers of the grapevines are usually very small, the berries are often large and brightly colored with sweet flavors that attract birds and other animals to disperse the seeds contained within the berries.

Grapevines usually only produce fruit on shoots that came from buds that were developed during the previous growing season. In viticulture, this is one of the principles behind pruning the previous year's growth (or "One year old wood") that includes shoots that have turned hard and woody during the winter (after harvest in commercial viticulture). These vines will be pruned either into a cane which will support 8 to 15 buds or to a smaller spur which holds 2 to 3 buds.

Description

In the wild, all species of Vitis are normally dioecious, but under domestication, variants with perfect flowers appear to have been selected. Flower buds are formed late in the growing season and overwinter for blooming in the spring of the next year. They produce leaf-opposed cymes. Vitis is distinguished from other genera in the Vitaceae family by its petals, which remain joined at the tip and detach from the base to fall off together as a calyptra or 'cap'. The flowers are pentamerous. The calyx is greatly reduced or nonexistent in most species. The fruit is a berry in botanical terms, ovoid in shape and juicy, with a two-celled ovary each containing two ovules, thus normally producing four seeds per flower (or fewer by way of aborted embryos).

Other parts of the vine include the tendrils which are leaf-opposed, branched in Vitis vinifera, and support the climbing plant by twining around surrounding structures such as branches or the trellising of a vine-training system.

The genus Vitis is divided into two subgenera, Euvitis Planch. have 38 chromosomes (n=19) with berries borne on clusters and Muscadinia Planch. 40 (n=20) with small clusters.

Wild grapes can resemble the single-seeded Menispermum canadense (moonseed), which is toxic.

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