Vitis tiliifolia
species of plant
Vitis tiliifolia is a New World liana in the grape family commonly known as Caribbean grape. Other names include West Indian grape, water vine, Agrá and
Bejuco de Agua (in Costa Rica) and (in Belizean Creole) water tie-tie and water-wise.
Distribution
Vitis tiliifolia is native to most of Mexico (including Baja Sur, Campeche, Chiapas, Colima, Durango, Guanajuato, Guerrero, Hidalgo, Jalisco, México, Michoacán, Morelos, Nayarit, Oaxaca, Puebla, Querétaro, Quintana Roo, San Luis Potosí, Sinaloa, Tabasco, Veracruz and Yucatán states) and in many other countries in the Americas and the Caribbean (Belize, Colombia, Costa Rica - where it is most common between 500 and 1,000 meters altitude, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands and St Lucia).
Uses
Vitis tiliifolia is grown as a forest crop in Mayan agriculture, and is used for food or drink, or as an ingredient in medicines.
The vine is most commonly dioecious, with separate male and female vines, though wild hermafrodite vines have been found. Flowering is usually at the beginning of the dry season (December in the northern hemisphere) and fruit production can be up to 20 kg per vine in cultivation. The fruits are small and acid with low sugar near 8 Brix but are sometimes made into wine resembling that of the Norton grape of the east and central USA. In cultivation the vines are vigorous similar to the Muscadine grape and should be given ample trellis room of near 6 meters or 20 feet. V. tiliifolia can and should be pruned and can be propagated from cuttings just like other grapes.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Vitis tiliifolia” is species of plant. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Vitis, tiliifolia and species, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “species of plant” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Stable identifiers, scientific names and standards terminology offer the best bridge between this overview and specialist evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 19, 2023. The linked authority identifier is Q2712091. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Vitis tiliifolia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.