I spent a few hours today combating porcelain-berry at Woodford Mansion. Now that the beautiful berries are apparent everywhere, its [relatively] easy to find and eliminate at the early stages. But wait: how do you know the difference between the native and non-native species? In this area we have also have a native wild grape (Vitis spp.), however it can still be damaging to specimen plants. My quest involved some light research, but now i’m informed and you can be too. Listen to my commentary below!
Porcelain-berry (Ampelopsis brevipedunculata). The invasive species has fruit and flowers that grow upright, whereas the native wild grape very clearly droops downward. It’s hard to tell in these photos, but they are certainly upright and very clearly not drooping like a true grape cluster would.
Resources mentioned in the audio commentary