Muscadine Plant

Muscadine plants have some of the most beautiful fowers. The picture below is of a flower that bloomed from a muscadine plant in the wild. It is pretty extravagant! Did you know that there are over 300 kinds of cultivated muscadine plants in the United States?

According to Wikipedia, Muscadines (Vitis rotundifolia) are a grapevine species native to the present-day southeastern United States that has been extensively cultivated since the 16th Century. They are well adapted to their native warm and humid climate; they need fewer chilling hours than better known varieties and they thrive on summer heat.

The muscadine berries range from bronze to dark purple to black in color when ripe. They have skin sufficiently tough that eating the raw fruit often involves biting a small hole in the skin to suck out the pulp inside. Muscadines are not only eaten fresh, but also are used in making wine, juice, and jelly. Go here to learn more about this very useful vine.