Survives zone 7 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
Chinese wild grape (also called the 'wool grape' for its felted young leaves) is a genuine subsistence fruit across its wide Asian range — fresh berries, boiled roots and young shoots are all eaten locally — and it is also studied as a genetic resource for cold, drought and disease resistance in grape-breeding programs.
- Hardiness
- Zone 7–9
- Habit
- Vine
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- Sept–Oct
- Mature size
- Vine 5–10 m
- Light
- Full sun
- Soil pH
- 6.0–7.0
- Environment
- Montane
- Native range
- Widespread across China and into India, Bhutan and Nepal, from near sea level up to about 3200 m, in shrubland and forest.
- Status
- Wild
- Years to fruit
- 2–3 yrs
- Growth speed
- Moderate.
- Spacing
- 350 cm (138 in) apart — about 12 m² (132 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Simple, broadly oval to heart-shaped leaves in the typical variety (heyneana), or trilobed to deeply cleft, mulberry-like leaves in variety ficifolia; young foliage has a felted, woolly texture.
- Root system
- Vigorous and deep-rooting, as in most of the Asian wild grapes.
- Fruit description
- Globose berries 10–13 mm across, ripening purple to nearly black, eaten fresh; young shoots are also edible and the roots are boiled and used in curries, with the stems yielding a drinkable watery sap.
- Propagation
- Propagated from seed or by hardwood cuttings/layering as in related wild Vitis species; also maintained in vitro via slow-growth tissue culture for germplasm conservation in China.
- 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. Adaptable across a very wide elevation and soil range from near sea level to high mountains; general well-drained, moderately fertile loam suits it, without special lime or acidity requirements documented.
How it spreads. Tendril-climber with divided tendrils, scrambling through shrubs and forest understory across a broad elevational range.
Growing tips. Recognized alongside V. amurensis and V. davidii as an important grape wild-relative source of resistance genes to cold, drought, pests and disease used in cultivar improvement programs; two subspecies are recognized — var. heyneana ('wool grape') with oval-to-quinquangular leaves, and var. ficifolia ('mulberry-leaf grape') with trilobed-to-cleft leaves.
Grow journal
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