Do Wild Grape Vines Bloom?

Characterstics

• The blossom of wild grape vine is tiny. The bud is light green and on a short stem about one-eighth-inch long. A stem may hold bunches of these buds or just one or two, depending on the cultivar and the vigor of the vine. The round bud unfurls in the spring when the leaves are just coming out and sends out a tiny white flower, even smaller than the bud. After bees pollinate the flower, the base swells and becomes the grape.

Dioecious

• The term dioecious refers to the inability of a vine to bear both male and female flowers and thus self-pollinate itself. Some of the wild grape vines, like muscadines, are dioecious, being only the male vine or only the female vine. These need each other in close proximity for the bees or wind to carry pollen grains from one to the other. The male vines flower and then flowers dry up and fall off.

Timing

• Since the grape vines produce blossoms at the same time that they are producing the new leaves in the spring, you can miss seeing them if you wait too long. Obviously, if you inspect the vines and see immature grapes, you know the vine blossomed. However, if the vine was a male vine, you could miss seeing the blossoms and would have no evidence that the plant had flowered.

Location

• When trying to locate the flowers on a wild grape vine, look between the second and fifth nodes up from the base of the cane. Fruit is born on new shoots from the previous year's wood. Since wild grapes are rarely pruned, it is more difficult to find the current season's new shoots than in a cultivated selection.