OF THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 71 



rather their seeds, are we able to arrive at any thing like a satisfactory disposition of 

 thes(^ plants. 



Before I proceed to the classification of our Grape-vinos, 1 deem it necessary to 

 say a few iireliniinary words : 



All the true Grape-vines bear fertile Uovvers on one stock, and sterile llowers on 

 another separate stock, and are, tlierefore, called polygamous, or not quite correctly, 

 ■di<xcious. The sterile plants do bear male llowers with abortive pistils, so that while 

 they never produce fruit themselves, they may assist in fertilizing the others ; the 

 fertile flowers, however, are real hermaphrodites, containing both'organs in perfection, 

 and capable ot ripening fruit without the assistance of the male plants. Real female 

 llowers, without stamens, do not seem ever to have been observed. Both forms, the 

 male and the hermaphrodite, or if preferred, those with sterile and those with complete 

 llowers, are found mixed in the native localities of the wild plants, but only the fertile 

 plants have been selected for cultivation, and thus it happens that to the cultivator 

 only these are known, and as the Grape-vino of the Old World has been in cultivation 

 for thousands of years, it has resulted that this hermaphrodite character of its flowers 

 has been mistaken for a botanical peculiarity, by which it was to be distinguished, not 

 only from our American Grape-vines, but also from the wild grapes of the Old World. 

 But plants raised from the seeds of this, as well as of any other true Grape-vine, gen- 

 •<'rally furnish as many sterile as fertile specimens, while those produced by layering or 

 cuttings, of course only propagate the individual character of the mother-plant. 



The peculiar disposition of the tendrils in the Grape-vines, first indicated by 

 Prof. A. Braun, of Berlin, furnishes an important characteristic for the destinction of 

 one of our most valuable species, yitis Labrusca, and both its wild and cultivated varie- 

 ties, from all others. In this species— and it is the only true Vitis exhibiting it — the ten- 

 drils, or their equivalent, an inflorescence, are found opposite each leaf, and this ar- 

 rangement I designate as continuous tetidrils. Ail the other species, known to me, 

 and even Vitis Thunbergii, the east Asiatic representative of our V. Labrusca, often 

 thrown together and confounded with it, exhibit a regular alternation of two leaves, 

 each having a tendril fipposite it, with a third leaf without such a tendril, and this ar- 

 rangement may be named intermittent tendrils. Like all vegetative characters, this is 

 not an absolute one : to observe it well, it is necessarj' to examine well-grown canes 

 found in spring, and neither sprouts of extraordinary vigor nor stunted autumnal 

 branchlets. The few lower, smaller leaves of a cane have no opposite tendrils, but 

 after the second or third loaf the regularity in the arrangement of the tendrils, as above 

 described, rarely fails to occur. In weak branches we sometimes find tendrils ii'reg- 

 tilarly placed opposite leaves, or, sometimes, none at all. 



It is a remarkable fact, connected with this law of vegetation, that most Grape- 

 vines bear only two inflorescences (consequently two bunches of grapes) ujjon the same 

 cane, while in the forms belonging to Labrusca there are often three and, rarely, four 

 in succession, each opposite a loaf. Whenever, in rare eases, in other species, a third 

 inflorescence occurs, there will always be found a barren leaf (without an opposite in- 

 florescence) between the second and third ones. Most species belonging to Cissus 

 exhibit the same arrangement, but a few are known to bear consecutive tendrils, just 

 as V. Labrusca does. 



Young seedlings of all the Grape-vines are glabrous or only very slightly hairy. 

 The cobwebby or cottony down, so characteristic of some species, makes its appear- 

 ance only in the older or in the adult plants; but in some of their varieties, and not 

 rarely in the cultivated ones, it is mainly observed in the young growth of spring and is 

 apt to disappear in the mature leaf ; buteven then the leaf is never shining as it is iu 

 the glabrous species, but of a dull or unpolished appearance. 



