eXtension

Vine berry identification

Asked September 5, 2018, 6:09 PM EDT

I am trying to find out what type of berries these are. First picture - the plant is a vine and has berries clustered at the end of a stiff stem. There are approximately 5 clusters on each vine. The back of the clusters do not have berries - it is like a half sphere of berries.

I was able to identify the second picture as a Nannyberry Viburnum.
Latin: Viburnum lentago. Other common names: blackhaw, sheepberry, sweet viburnum, wild raisin.

Denise

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Roseau County Minnesota

6 Responses

Hello,

Sorry for the delay in response, the question was held up by someone else who just sent it along to me a few minutes ago.

Do you have a photo of the plant from which the berries in the first photo came from? It would help to have that for identification purposes. Also a close up of the leaves.

I'll await your response. Thank you for your patience.

Hello,
It is a little tough to see the plant but the picture attached show how the vine wraps around the tree. The vine is woody when dry and very fibrous. Unfortunately the leaves have fallen off the vines so I was not able to get pictures of them. The original vines did have the curly-q tendrils one sees on regular grape plants and the original leaves were approximately 10 cm large. I am almost inclined to think these are some type of grape. I squished on of the fruits and it had five tiny seeds inside, however, the pulp was thicker and stickier than a grape. I included additional pictures of the fruit clusters.

Thanks,
Denise

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Hello,

It may be a grape vine. Sorry I can't tell more until I can see the leaves but here is a link to information about wild grape on the Minnesota Wildflowers web site. Maybe you can confirm that the leaves they show are similar to what you saw when the plant had leaves. https://www.minnesotawildflowers.info/shrub/riverbank-grape

I've included a screenshot of a grape vine for you to check out as well.

I hope this information helps.

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Hello again,

Another master gardener suggested that it might be a kind of carrion flower vine. Check out the following Minnesota Wildflowers link about it and see if the leaves on that more closely resemble the leaves you saw on your vine.

I hope this helps.

I think I found it using the link you provided. The stems are not prickly and the leaves looked like these (from the picture found on the site). The clusters were not as abundant with berries, however, I believe the plants I found were young.

Smilax lasioneura (Blue Ridge Carrion Flower)


Thank you for your help,

Denise

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Yes, in my haste to get my last message out, I neglected to add the link. Thank you for finding it and I'm glad you were able to finally get an identification.

All the best.