Virginia Creeper: Identifying Characteristics
Habitat:
Virginia creeper grows on sites ranging from moist and shady to open and dry including new and old forests and forest margins. It can also be found on the borders of clearings and along fencerows and streambanks.
Size/Form:
It is a high climbing or trailing woody vine that reaches up to 90' long. It climbs by many branched tendrils with adhesive disks or covers the ground by taking root. Given enough time it can completely cover walls, fences, small buildings, and trees.
Stem:
New stems are brownish-green and finely hairy but they gradually acquire pale, raised dots and turn purplish-brown with age. Tendrils along the stems occur opposite to the leaves of growing shoots and may end in adhesive discs or shrivel
Leaves:
The leaves are palmately compound, alternate, and deciduous. They generally have five leaflets that spread out like fingers on a hand. The leaflets are longer than they are wide, 2" to 6" long by 1½" to 3" wide. Leaflets are ovate, elliptic, or obovate in outline. The lower leaflet surface is lighter and sometimes covered with short hairs. The leaflet margins are serrate above the middle. The leaflets turn dark red to purple in the fall.
Fruit:
The fruit is a round berry, ¼" wide, and is black to dark blue when it ripens between October and December. The outside of the fruit is covered in a white, waxy substance.