Cannabaceae : Humulus lupulus var. lupuloides

Humulus lupulus is a perennial, dioecious vine with green, branched stems that grow to 10 m or more in length and 1-5 mm in diameter. The simple, opposite leaves have long petioles, from 2.5 to 12 cm in length. The blades are ovate, 5-15 cm long and 4-16 cm wide, unlobed or with 3-5 lobes, the lobes with sharply pointed tips. The margins are finely toothed, the upper leaf surface is mostly hairless, the lower surface having soft hairs along the veins and occasionally on the surface, along with the yellow glands that dot the lower surface. Male plants have panicles of flowers, 7-15 cm long and 1.5-5 cm wide, in branching clusters on short peduncles arising from upper leaf axils and at branch tips, each panicle with 20 to 100+ flowers. Each flower has a short pedicel, 5 yellow-green spreading sepals and 5 short stamens. Female plants have 10 to 50 pairs of flowers in 5-10 mm long catkin-like clusters at the tips of peduncles arising from leaf axils and branch tips. The sessile flowers are subtended by green to yellowish bracts, with 2 styles and no petals. The fruit are yellowish achenes that are surrounded by the enlarged bracts that create a cone-like structure 2-5 cm long and 2-3 cm in diameter. The green cone-like fruit ripen to straw-colored and eventually turn brown. Common hops bloom from July to September and are commonly found in moist thickets and deciduous woodlands along drainages in South Dakota.