PlantFiles: Muscadine, Southern Fox Grape, Scuppernong, Bullace
Vitis rotundifolia

I propagated mine from seed gathered along the Congaree River. While people's tastes will differ, the birds and squirrels love muscadines. This is a plant worth growing for its wildlife value.

Agree with previous comment. And add that the fruit are not worth the trouble--rubbery, seedy, rather ordinary flavor.

Although native, this vine is almost as aggressive as Chinese wisteria. It grows up trees and weighs down lower branches until they break of. If you have time to keep this vine trained to a fence and prune it regularly it will produce tasty fruit but it grows so fast it can get out of control quickly. There is a vineyard close to where I live that makes scuppernong wine that is very good.

These grapes grow everywhere they find something to climb on. In shade, part shade, part sun, and sun. They make HUGE thick vines that I find hanging down from the trees, I've found ones that are taller than a house.

I've yet to sample or see any fruit because the japanese beetles decimate them every year.

Florida native plant and it turns a pale yellow in the fall/winter. Can be found covering dead trees in my area. In some cases it would appear to be a large shrub. Early January is the best time in Florida to enjoy the fall color as it is plentiful up and down the highways here.

We inherited two Muscadine plants trained on a clothesline-turned-arbor on the property. On the plus side, we've found that Muscadines make good grape jelly (a pretty, rosy-purple color and good flavor.)

The tough skin, large seeds, and the "pucker-factor" (pretty tart, even when fully ripe) make them unpalatable for eating fresh out of hand, at least for my family (we've been spoiled by big, sweet, thin-skinned, seedless imported grapes, I suppose.)

Until I tasted a Muscadine, I thought all grape-flavored products (candy, soda, medicine) were far removed from any resemblance to a true grape flavor. After eating a few of these natural "Shock-Tarts", I've concluded that an artificial grape flavor isn't so far off-base after all!

I also have trouble with beatles and other defoliating diseases, which tend to make the plants look unattractive from late summer onward.