Ancient Algonquian speakers noticed the sweetbay magnolias and named the river in North Carolina askuponong, place of the sweetbay tree. In the early 1800s, Europeans noticed the bronze-colored grapes growing on the riverbank and called the grape and the river Scuppernong.
The grapes are muscadines. Most muscadines are purple to black. The coloring of the scuppernongs is the work of a recessive gene — as simple as blue eyes in humans.
Muscadines grow in states along the coast from Delaware to Texas. They grow up the Mississippi Valley to the Missouri. As I boy, I pillaged vines at my grandparents’ places in East Texas and West Tennessee. But I have never seen anything like the vines in the Georgia Piedmont.
I owe readers a clarification: I’d spoken of August as the peak month for wild muscadines here. The vines are still producing. I have learned to think of peak months.
I’m interested in the grapes because the idea of “sustainability” has been spreading from biologists to farmers.
European grapes are wonderful, but they are susceptible to Pierce’s disease, caused by bacteria. Muscadines are naturally resistant, which is why an amateur naturalist like me is baffled by the bumper crop. If you’re a farmer, we’re talking about the lower costs of fighting pathogens and less chance of crop failure.
• Source: Peter C. Andersen, Ali Sarkhosh, Dustin Huff, and Jacque W. Breman, “The Muscadine Grape (Vitis rotundifolia Michx)”; askifas, n.d. The site is run by extension agents associated with the University of Florida.The article is here:
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