Vitis tiliifolia

Water-wise redirects here. This article is about a vine plant sometimes called the water-wise; for the UK-based, water conservation group see The Waterwise Project .

Caribbean grape
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Eudicots
(unranked):	Rosids
Order:	Vitales
Family:	Vitaceae
Genus:	Vitis
Species:	V. tiliifolia
Binomial name
Vitis tiliifolia Humb. & Bonpl. ex Schult.
Synonyms
Vitis caribaea DC.

Vitis tiliifolia is a New World liana in the grape family commonly known as Caribbean grape. Other names include West Indian grape, water vine, and (in Belizean Creole) water tie-tie and water-wise.

Distribution

Vitis tiliifolia is found throughout 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, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands).

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.

Pests

Vitis tiliifolia may have some resistance to Pierce's disease (PD) which afflicts many commercial grape species; it has exhibited atypical symptoms despite harboring high populations of the plant pathogen Xylella fastidiosa, which causes PD.

External links

• Interactive plant pictures and distribution
  map of Vitis tiliifolia at discoverlife.org
• Photo of a living V. tiliifolia showing mostly leaves'
  undersides from Wheaton College in Norton, MA