Ampelopsis orientalis (Lam.) Planch.

A laxly bushy, or sometimes climbing, deciduous shrub, with glabrous, slightly ribbed shoots. Leaves variable; often doubly trifoliolate (each of the three chief divisions being subdivided into three leaflets), sometimes simply pinnate, sometimes bipinnate. Leaflets ovate, diamond-shaped or obovate, tapered at the base; 1 to 3 in. long, 5⁄8 to 2 in. wide; the upper part coarsely toothed; dark dull green and glabrous above; paler, grey-green, also glabrous beneath, or with tiny tufts in the vein-axils. Flowers with the parts in fours, produced on long-stalked cymes. Fruit roundish, top-shaped, 1⁄4 in. diameter, red.

Native of Asia Minor, Syria, etc., up to 5,000 ft on the mountains; introduced in 1818. It is, no doubt, closely allied, and very similar to the American A. arborea, but its foliage is coarser and not so distinctly bipinnate, and it falls sooner in autumn. The leaves are usually composed of nine leaflets (but sometimes eleven or fifteen), which are considerably larger on the average, and appear to be never downy on the veins beneath, as are frequently those of A. arborea. A handsome foliaged shrub, which used to fruit with Canon Ellacombe at Bitton, near Bath. He compared them to clusters of red currants.

From the Supplement (Vol. V)

The fruits of this species become blue-black when fully ripe. In Asiatic Turkey it is confined to the southern ranges, from near sea-level to about 6,000 ft.