English: Peppervine.
Synonym: Ampelopsis arborea
German: Pfeffer-Rebe; Pfeffer-Wein.
Clades:
Vitaceae,
Proteales, Proridae,
Fabanae,
Angiospermae,
Plants.
Region: Southeastern United States,Texas to Florida, Missouri, Virginia.
Habitat: moist woods, stream banks, fence rows, swamp margins, disturbed fields, and thickets.
Content: tannins, flavonoids, calcium oxalate crystals.
Use: ornamental climbing vine for arbors and trellises; berries for birds and wildlife, not suitable for humans.
BotanyType: vine, liana, climbing; deciduous, woody; perennial.
Root: deep, extensive taproot; spreading fibrous lateral roots.
Stem: high-climbing or trailing woody vine (liana), 5–10 m long; climbing via tendrils; bark becomes furrowed with age.
Leaves: alternate; bipinnately or tripinnately compound; 10–20 cm long; with small, coarsely toothed, dark green leaflets, reddish-purple in autumn.
Inflorescence: axillary; flat-topped cymes; opposite the leaves on current season's growth.
Flowers: small; greenish-yellow; inconspicuous; 5-petaled, hermaphroditic; blooming in early to mid-summer
Pollination: by bees, flies, small native pollinators.
Fruit: berry; small, 6 to 10 mm; fleshy; spherical; green to bright pink, red when ripening, finally shiny blue-black in late summer to autumn.
Seed: 2–4 hard, obovoid brown seeds per berry
Dispersion: by birds, small mammals.