Vitis
vinifera L.
Standardized Common
Name: Grape
Family: Vitaceae
Taxonomy: Vitis
includes about 65 species, which are widely distributed in the Northern
Hemisphere. Nearly a dozen species have been cultivated for their edible
fruits. Vitis vinifera is by far the most important of these; it is
cultivated nearly worldwide, and numerous distinctive cultivars exist.
Description: Woody climbing
vines, to 35 m high (usually pruned and trained to a much lesser height); bark
shredding; foliage leaves alternate, with single tendrils opposite some leaves;
at least every third node lacking a tendril; tendrils slender, once or twice
branched, to >30 cm long. Leaves 5–15 cm long, orbicular and palmately
lobed, or rarely reniform and unlobed; base cordate, or nearly truncate if
unlobed; lobe apices broadly acute to obtuse; margins coarsely and irregularly
serrate-dentate to serrate; main venation palmate; upper surface glabrous,
sometimes pubescent over veins; lower surface glabrous to pubescent.
Inflorescences lateral, opposite the leaves, paniculate, many-flowered; flowers
hermaphroditic or unisexual and plants dioecious (in wild plants). Flowers
small, greenish; sepals 5, fused into slightly 5-lobed cup; petals 5, ca. 5 mm
long, free at base but fused at apex, deciduous; stamens 5. Fruit a fleshy,
juicy berry, yellowish to red, purple or black, 6–30 mm long, oblong to
ellipsoid or globose; seeds absent or 1–2(–3) per fruit, often reduced.
Parts
in Commerce:
Seed (in addition to fruit, juice, skins, and derived products)
Identification:
- Pear-shaped to
ovoid with a distinct narrow end or beak, moderately flattened, often
irregularly shaped depending upon number of seeds in fruit
- Size varies
among cultivars, usually (4.5–)5.5–8(–11) mm long
- Surface hard,
deep brown
- Broad end
emarginate (notched)
- One broad side
has a prominent longitudinal ridge (raphe) with a groove on either side
- Opposite side of
seed has groove running from apical notch to a circular scar (“chalazal
knot”) in middle of seed surface
- Narrow sides of
seed smoothly curved
Adulterants: Grape seed is always
harvested from cultivated grapes, so confusion of identity is essentially
impossible. Some cultivars produce an excessive number of undeveloped sterile
seeds, which float in water, whereas good seeds sink. Aside from V. vinifera
itself, the native V. rotundifolia Michx. (Muscadine Grape) is the most
commonly cultivated species of Vitis in North America. Its seeds are
oblong with a short beak and several conspicuous transverse ridges on the
sides.
References:
International Plant Genetic Resources Institute. Descriptors
for Grapevine (Vitis spp.). Rome: IPGRI; 1997.
Webb DA. Vitis. In: Tutin TG, Heywood VH, Burges NA, et al., eds. Flora Europaea. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; 1968:246.
Figure 84: Vitis vinifera seed.