Art by Alice Tangerini: Vitis rotundifolia Michaux

From Plant Press, Vol. 25, No. 4, October 2022.

Vitis rotundifolia, or muscadine, is a grape species from the southern USA commonly used as fruits or for cooking and making jelly, juice, and wine. It is a close relative of Vitis popenoei from Mexico and adjacent regions. Alice Tangerini used a variety of herbarium specimens for her drawing, taking advantage of many specimens collected by Jun Wen. Images of the living plant and fruit were numerous on the web and were used to convey a more natural appearance of Vitis in the drawing. The illustration appears in The Flora of North America: North of Mexico (Vol. 12 Magnioliophyta: Vitaceae to Garryaceae). Tangerini was challenged to reduce the drawing to a small size to fit the FNA format. The illustration was also selected for the t-shirt design by the FNA group for Botany 2016.