Scuppernong

The scuppernong /ˈskʌpərˌnɒŋ/ is a large variety of muscadine (Vitis rotundifolia), a species of grape native to the Southern United States. It is usually a greenish or bronze color and is similar in appearance and texture to a white grape, but rounder and larger and first known as the 'big white grape'. The grape is commonly known as the "scuplin" in some areas of the Deep South. It is also known as the "scufalum", "scupanon", "scupadine", "scupnun", or "scufadine" in some parts of the South. The scuppernong is the state fruit of North Carolina.

The name comes from the Scuppernong River in North Carolina mainly along the coastal plain. It was first mentioned as a "white grape" in a written logbook by the Florentine explorer Giovanni de Verrazzano while exploring the Cape Fear River Valley in 1524. He wrote "...Many vines growing naturally there...". Sir Walter Raleigh's explorers, the captains Philip Amadas and Arthur Barlowe, wrote in 1584 that North Carolina's coast was "...so full of grapes as the very beating and surge of the sea overflowed them...in all the world, the like abundance is not to be found." He may have been referring to Sargasso seaweed from coral reefs, which can be seen washed up on shore after a major storm off of the NC coast. The seaweed has berrylike gas-filled bladders looking much like grapes to keep the fronds afloat. However, in 1585, Governor Ralph Lane, when describing North Carolina to Raleigh, stated that "We have discovered the main to be the goodliest soil under the cope of heaven, so abounding with sweet trees that bring rich and pleasant, grapes of such greatness, yet wild, as France, Spain, nor Italy hath no greater...".

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