Native Grapes of the United States. 129 



ments, has always been the true cause of specific variation. This is done by 

 transplanting to a ditTerent soil or climate, or both, and by mixing of blood 

 of two well separated branches (species), giving a more sudden start, to 

 change, than a mere variety, which, if at the same time the new product be 

 put under new environments, as a hybrid grape-seed carried by a bird into 

 an entirely difierent soil and climate from that occupied by the parents, in 

 time quite a novel and unaccountable species would develop, and only a 

 thorough comparative anatomist could trace its origin. 



Some naturalists make the loss of power to intermingle, the separatrix of 

 species. Prof. Planchon, a noted French ampelographer, takes this position. 

 The lamented Dr. George Engelmann, who did so much for useful botany, 

 and in this sphere to simplify the perplexing grape genus, held to this view 

 in the main, and declared it as a law, that, "honest nature abhors hybridi- 

 zation ; " as much as to say there is a dishonest nature, or else there are no 

 hybrids. 



If this is the proper divider of species, then there is but one species of 

 true grapes, and Dr. Englemann's thirteen native species stand condemned 

 by his own rule, as hybrids are known among all of them. Even the pecu- 

 liarly distinct and uniform Scuppernong, in the hands of Dr. Peter Wylie, 

 yielded some remarkable hybrids. 



On the other hand. Prof. Millardet, another eminent writer on the grape, 

 finds as many true species as Dr. Engelmann, and hybrids among them often. 

 My own experience so abundantly confirms this view, that I am in utter 

 confusion without accepting it. Doubtless the whole disagreement arises 

 from the definition of species, by which the classification is made. A more 

 proper definition of species probably is a type embodying peculiar and uni- 

 form general characteristics (however admitting varietal changes), which 

 continually occur by natural distribution over a large area, or in a great 

 number of individuals, and which have great antiquity, and may be supposed 

 to relate purely to a common parent in the remote past. Then those inter- 

 mediate individuals, occurring here and there in the vicinity of two species 

 in juxtaposition, which nearly always possess only the two sets of specific 

 characteristics juxtai:)osed in the two species, but completely blended in the 

 lone individual, such as we find in the mule and mulatto, we are justified in 

 terming hybrids. 



One holding the theory that "nature abhors hybridization," is always per- 

 plexed at finding such individuals wild, and must invent still another theory, 

 that it is "a sport of nature," in other words, an effect without a cause ; or 

 else be continually creating new species, as did Rafinesque, in either case 

 producing endless confusion. 



In a long course of reproduction, hybrids, like varieties, may become spe- 

 cies. This seems true of several of our recognized species of grapes— the 

 Palmata in particular, and Monticola. The " Southern J^stivalis " of vine- 

 yardists is entirely too young and variable to rank as a species, yet if placed 

 in a region apart from others for a long period it \vould become a species of 

 this character. More of this further on. 



