Different Fruits & Flowers That Grow on Vines

Ornamental

• Wisteria vines twine around structures, bearing grape-shaped flower clusters and forming thick vines that need strong supports to hold their weight. Native American wisterias are more restrained in their growth habits than Asian varieties. Amethyst Falls is a native wisteria with lavender-purple flowers and Nivea is a native wisteria with white flowers. Ornamental sweet potato vines are grown in containers as trailing plants that spill over pots. Blackie, Margarita and Tri-Color are three cultivars with different foliage colors.

Edible

• Bunch grapes, or table grapes, are sold in supermarkets. Muscadines are grapes native to the southeastern U.S. that form small, loose clusters instead of large bunches. Both kinds of grapes must be trained on strong wires to support their heavy vines. Kiwifruit is also a vigorous fruiting vine that requires support. Commercial kiwifruit vineyards are found in California and South Carolina. Cucumbers, pumpkins and beans are vines grown as vertical crops in urban vegetable gardens where space is limited.

Medicinal

• Passion flower vines (Passiflora spp.) form tendrils that clasp nearby supports and help plants climb. Maypop is the common name given to P. incarnata, a native passion flower. It has fragrant, fringy flowers that precede large green, egg-shaped, seed pods. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Houma, Cherokee and other Native American tribes used maypop medicinally. It is still used to treat headaches. Kudzu vine is an invasive weed in the United States, but it is also used medicinally to treat alcoholism, cold symptoms, indigestion and pain, according to Jeff Schalau of the Arizona Cooperative Extension.

Hummingbirds and Butterflies

• Jasmine and jessamine are two different plants, but both are flowering vines that attract hummingbirds and butterflies. Carolina jessamine is the state flower of South Carolina that has tubular single, yellow flowers. Pride of Augusta is a double-flowering jessamine. Many jasmine flowers are sweetly fragrant and shaped like white or yellow stars. Trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) is a vigorous vine that bears orange trumpet-shaped flowers and is such a favorite of hummingbirds that it's called a hummingbird magnet.