m. PLEASANT LIBRARY 



THE GRAPES OF NEW YORK. 97 



this under Vitis. Walter gives only three species and his descriptions of 

 these are very brief. 



The first European botanist who made an extensive study of American 

 plants in their habitats was Andre Michaux, a French botanist who traveled 

 extensiveh' in North America at about the close of the eighteenth century. 

 In his Flora Boreali- Americana, which was published in 1803, he gives a 

 brief generic description of Vitis which includes all of the essential charac- 

 ters given by Walter. He also questions the male and female characters 

 mentioned by Walter.' Michaux mentions five species of the American 

 grapes. His descriptions are clear and every species described can readily 

 be recognized so that there is no question among botanists as to what 

 species was meant in any instance. 



An interesting contribution to our knowledge of the grapes of North 

 America is that of William Bartram.^ Bartram's opportunities for becom- 

 ing familiar with these plants were probably greater than those of any 

 other person of his day, he being a resident of America, and his father 

 having been a botanist, so that he was trained from childhood to observe 

 plants. The following is an extract from an article of Bartram's in the 

 Domestic Encyclopedia, 1804: 



' Grapes are not to-day considered dioecious but polygamo-dioecious, a distinction which will be 

 defined later. 



- John Bartram was bom near the village of Darby in Delaware (then Chester) County, Pennsyl- 

 vania, in 1699. Bartram is generally credited with having established the first botanical garden in 

 America. This garden was founded about 1728, some four miles south of what was the town of 

 Philadelphia and is now a part of the Park System of that city. He was bred a Quaker but owing 

 to his liberal opinions was excluded from that Society in 175S. During his life he was in corre- 

 spondence with ma'iy of the leading scientific men of Europe to whom he sent many specimens of 

 plants and other t?.ings of scientific interest. He made many trips into various parts of the colonies, 

 to Ontario, Lake George, the Carolinas, Florida and Georgia, in search of information. The last of 

 these journeys, that to the southern states, was made after he was seventy years of age. Bartram 

 is blamed by all of his contemporaries for not having pubUshed more than he did. His death 

 occurred in 1777. 



William Bartram. son of John Bartram, was born in 1739 and died in 1823. Much of his work 

 was done in connection with his father under whom he received his botanical training. His best 

 known work is his Travels tn the Carolinas, Georgia and Florida (1791), in which he gives an interest- 

 ing account of that region, including descriptions of a number of new southern plants. His article on 

 grapes which is here quoted was published in the Domestic Encyclopedia, 1804, and also in the Medical 

 Repository of the same year. 



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