This sprawling, climbing vine can reach 30 feet long with male and female flowers on separate plants (dioecious). Note the deeply lobed leaves and clusters of dangling, cone-like female flowers. The plant spreads with rhizomes.

FLOWER: June–October. Female flowers in cone-like clusters with greenish-yellow bracts; clusters dangle and are 3/8–2 3/8 inches long (1–6 cm). Male flowers on separate plants are tiny, whitish-yellow in spike-like clusters 2 3/4–6 inches long (7-15 cm).

LEAVES: Opposite with stems (petioles) shorter than the blades. Blades rounded in outline, deeply cut into 3–7 lobes (palmate), strongly veined and toothed, tips pointed.

HABITAT: Moist sandy, gravelly soils along steams, canyons, meadows, open areas; pinyon-juniper woodlands, ponderosa pine-Gambel’s-oak, spruce-fir-aspen forests.

ELEVATION: 6,000–9,000 feet.

RANGE: AZ, CA, CO, NM, NV, UT; Rocky Mts. and westward, Great Plains and Great Lakes states, Northeast, New England.

SIMILAR SPECIES: The palmate, toothed leaves and classic hop flowers help distinguish this vine.

NM COUNTIES: Widespread in NM, except eastern plains, in mid- to high-elevation, moist habitats: Bernalillo, Catron, Cibola, Colfax, Dona Ana, Lincoln, Los Alamos, Luna, McKinley, Mora, Otero, San Juan, San Miguel, Sandoval, Santa Fe, Sierra, Socorro, Rio Arriba, Taos, Torrance, Union.

NOTES: Hops vine is widely used ornamentally. The European H. lupulus var. lupulus is commercially grown for beer flavoring, and probably has introgressed with the native variety.