XXX. 1. THE SUMMER GRAPE. 469 



Sp. 2. The Summer Grape. V. cestivalis. Michaux. 



Figured in Audubon's Birds, with the Pileated Woodpecker, II, Plates 111 



and 114. 



This vine has much the habit of the last, but may be com- 

 monly distinguished by the absence of down upon the branches 

 and leaf-stalks, and by the nakedness of the lower part of the 

 very long trunk, in consequence of the dying of the lower 

 branches. 



The recent shoots are smooth, or with very little down, 

 hardly dotted. The leaves are four to seven inches long, and 

 somewhat less in width, very deeply heart-shaped, more in- 

 clined to 3- than 5-angled, often deeply lobed ; when young, 

 they are of a reddish or purplish tinge, shining above, with 

 tufts or cob-webs of brown down beneath ; when old they are 

 glaucous beneath, and downy only on the nerves and veins, — 

 which are often purple near the radiating point. 



Tendrils long, smooth, once or twice divided. Racemes very 

 long, compound, the lower branch often becoming a tendril. 

 Berries half an inch in diameter, dark blue, of an agreeable 

 taste, — ripe in October. 



Of this grape there are several varieties, one of which is so 

 marked that Pursh suspected it of being a separate species. It is 

 conspicuous for its very deep, palmate lobes, separated by rhom- 

 boidal sinuses. I have not been able to examine the fruit and 

 flowers. It is the Frost Grape or Winter Grape, V. sinuata of 

 Pursh, a vine with 5 -lobed leaves, the lobes arranged almost in 

 a circle, the lower ones meeting or nearly meeting at base. 

 Sinuses of the shape of the hull of a ship, nearly closed in by 

 the lobes, and rounded or acute at base. Surface nearly smooth 

 above, whitish or glaucous, with little tufts of ferruginous down 

 thickly scattered, together with hairs, on the nerves and veins 

 beneath ; margin serrate with large obtuse serratures. Fruit 

 in clusters long and simple, or with 2 to 5 branches, small, half 

 an inch in diameter, ripened by the first hard frosts, thence 

 called Frost Grape, but always acerb. Fruit-stalk smooth, 

 purplish, fruit purple. Trunk deep purple, bark separating in 

 long slender stripes. This agrees in many respects with the 



