Calycocarpum lyonii (Pursh) A. Gray

Cupseed; Lyonia Vine

Vine

Perennial

Vascular

Cupseed is a native herbaceous vine in the Moonseed family (Menispermaceae). It can be found throughout most of Alabama. Cupseed occurs in bottomland hardwood forests and on the banks of rivers and streams. It is a twining vine from slender rhizomes. The vines may reach lengths of 30 feet or more. The young vines are bluish-green in color and glabrous or slightly pubescent while older vines have yellowish-brown warty or grooved bark. The leaves are alternate, petiolate, broadly ovate in outline, palmately 3-5 lobed, with entire or toothed margins. The leaf surface is glabrous above and with sparse bristles along the veins on the lower surface. The leaves are very thin and have a deeply cordate base. Flower are produced in axillary racemes or panicles. Individual inflorescences have flowers that are either staminate or pistillate. Individual flowers have 6-9 whitish sepals and no petals. Staminate flowers have 6-12 stamens. Pistillate flowers have 6-91 staminodes and 3 pistils. The fruit is a globose, smooth drupe that is purplish-black at maturity. The seed is enclosed in a hard, bowl-shaped endocarp with a toothed margin.—A. Diamond.

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Native FACW- (NWPL) FACW (DEP)

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