Shrubs climbing by tendrils, with small greenish flowers in panicled clusters opposite the leaves. Stamens as many as the petals and opposite them. Calyx minute. Petals 4 or 5, hypogynous or perigynous, very deciduous. Fruit a berry, 1-4-seeded. Leaves palmately-veined, or compound.

Synopsis Of The Genera

1. Vitis. Leaves simple, heart-shaped, and variously lobed.

2. Ampelop'sis. Leaves compound-digitate, of 5 serrate leaflets.

1. Vit1s. Tourn. Grape

1. C. aestivalis, Michx. (Northern Fox-Grape.) Leaves and branches woolly. Berries large, dark purple or amber-coloured. - Moist thickets.

2. C. cordifo'lia, Michx. (Frost Grape.) Leaves smooth or nearly so, bright green on both sides, heart-shaped, sharply serrate. Berries small, blue or black. Var. riparia, Michx., has broader cut-lobed leaves. - Banks of streams.

2. Ampelop'sis

Michx. Virginia Creeper. A. quinquefo'lia, Michx. A common woody vine in low grounds. Leaves digitate, of 5 oblong-lanceolate leaflets. Tendrils with sucker-like disks at the end, by which they cling to walls, trunks of trees, etc. Fruit a small black berry.