Photo: Samuend — CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Survives zone 6 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
David's grape (Chinese bramble grape) is a genuinely fruiting wild grape of southern China's subtropical hills, distinctive for its bristly, spine-covered young shoots, and it is actively used as a table, juice and wine grape locally as well as a breeding parent (e.g. crossed with Muscat varieties to create cultivars like Beifeng and Beizi) for disease resistance in hot, humid climates.
- Hardiness
- Zone 6–9
- Habit
- Vine
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- Sept–Oct
- Mature size
- Vine 8–15 m
- Light
- Full sun
- Soil pH
- 6.0–7.0
- Environment
- Montane
- Native range
- Mountainous subtropical forest of southern China, south of the Yangtze River (first collected in Shaanxi by Père Armand David in 1872).
- Status
- Both wild and cultivated
- Years to fruit
- 2–3 yrs
- Growth speed
- Vigorous, reaching up to 15 m where supported.
- Spacing
- 350 cm (138 in) apart — about 12 m² (132 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Heart-shaped, slender-pointed, toothed leaves, glossy dark green and smooth above, bluish-grey beneath, carried on shoots covered in rough, spiny, gland-tipped bristles; foliage turns brilliant red or pink in autumn.
- Root system
- Ordinary climbing-vine root system adapted to warm, humid subtropical soils rather than the drought/lime specialization of the American rootstock species.
- Fruit description
- Berries around 16 mm across, large for a wild grape, thick-skinned, dark/black, sweet and juicy with only 1–2 seeds — genuinely used for fresh eating, juicing and dark purple-to-ruby wine.
- Propagation
- By seed after about six weeks of cold stratification sown in a cold frame, or by hardwood cuttings of current-season wood taken in December-January; layering also succeeds.
- Pollination
- ⚠ DIOECIOUS — needs male + female (a vigorous fruitless wild vine is usually a lone male)
The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.
Growing guide
Fertilizing. Prefers deep, rich, moisture-retentive, well-drained loam and performs best in calcareous soil; being adapted to high heat and humidity, it tolerates less lime-focused feeding regimes than the strictly rootstock-bred American species.
How it spreads. Climbs by tendrils to around 8–15 m; its bristly, gland-tipped, hooked young shoots give it a rough, almost bramble-like texture that can catch on nearby vegetation as it scrambles.
Growing tips. Noted for strong natural resistance to fungal diseases and tolerance of the hot, humid conditions of southern China, which makes it valuable breeding stock for cultivars suited to wet subtropical climates; give it full sun for fruit ripening and prune only in winter dormancy to avoid heavy bleeding.
Grow journal
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