74 SIXTH ANNUAL KEPORT 



3. ViTis -ESTivALis Michaux. — Smaller than tlie fli-st. cllmbinof over bushes and 

 smaller trees ; leaves laro^e (4-5 or 6 inches wide), ot tirmer texture than the preceding- 

 ones, entire, or often more or less deeply and obtusel3^3-5 lobed, with rounded sinus and 

 with short and broad teeth ; when young always very woolly or cottony, mostly bright 

 red or rusty ; at last smooihish but dull, and never shining like the preceding ones ; ber- 

 ries usually larger than in both others, and, when well grown, in compact bunches^ 

 coated with a distinct bloom ; seeds usually 2 or 3, with a very prominent raphe. 



This is the well-known Summer' Grape cova'caon throughout the INIiddle and South- 

 ern States, usually found on uplands and in dry open woods or thickets, maturing its 

 fruit in September. It is the most variable of our grape-vines, and hence has seduced 

 superficial observers into the establishment of numerous nominal species. A form with 

 large leaves which retain their rusty down at full maturity has often been mistaken for 

 Labrusca, wliich does not grow in the Mississippi Valley. Another form, more bushy 

 than climbing, with deeply lobtd rusty-downy leaves and sweet fruit, is Vifls Lince- 

 cumii of the sandy soils of Louisiana and Texas. Vitis montlcola of Texas is a form 

 with small entire leaves (the down of which at last is gathered in little tufts) and large 

 acid berries. When this species gets into shady woods it assumes a peculiar form, ap- 

 proaching V. coi-difulia through its smaller black berries, without bloom, with more acid 

 taste, and in larger bunches. Another form with ashy-white, downy, scarcely lobed 

 leaves, and fruit like the last mentioned, which grows in our bottoms, often climbing' 

 high trees, or growing over bushes on the banks of lakes I have distinguished by the- 

 name of cinerea. It is not alvvays easy to distinguish such forms from the other species, 

 and perhaps less so to unite them under the single species, a'stloalis, unless the essen- 

 tial characters above enumerated be closely attended to, and the numberless gradual 

 transitions from one form into the other be watched. 



We cultivate many varieties of this valuable species, the most important of which 

 are the Virginia Seedling, the Cynthiana and tiie Herheiiiont. 



4. ViTis RUPESTRis, Scheelc. — A small bushy plant, often without any tendrils,^ 

 rarely somewhat climbing; leaves small (2-3 inches wide), mostly broader than long,, 

 heart-shaped or truncate at base, scarcely ever slightlj'^ lobed, with broad cojvrse teeth 

 and usually an abruptly elongated point, glabrous, and of a glaucous or light green 

 color; berries middle-sized, in very small bunches; seeds mostly 8-4, obtuse, with ai 

 very slender raphe. 



This very peculiar grape-vine is found only west of the Mississippi, from the Mis- 

 souri river to Texas and westward probably to New Mexico. In our State, where it is 

 called Sand Grape, and in Arkansas, it grows on the gravelly banks and overflowed bars 

 of mountain streams; in Texas also on rocky plains, whence the Latin name; it is 

 there sometimes called Sugar Grape. Its luscious fruit ripens with us in August. 



It is nowhere yet in cultivation, but may in future prove of value. 



[The Grape-vine of the Old World, Vitis vinifera. Linnfcus, finds its place in this 

 section, between Vitis riparia and Vitis a'sfiimlis. Though many of its cultivated 

 varieties bear berries as large, or even larger than those of any of our American grape- 

 vines, other cultivated forms, and especially the true wine-grapes, those from which 

 the best wines are obtained, and also the wild or naturalized ones, have fruit not larger 

 than that of the above UMraed native species. 



This plant, together with the Wheat, belongs to those ancient acquisitions of cul- 

 tivation, the iiistory of which reaches beyond the most ancient written recoi'ds. Not 

 only have tlie sejiulclirys of the mummies of ancient P^gypt preserved us its fruit 

 (large sized berries) and seed, but its seeds have even been discovered in the lacustrian 

 habitations of northern Italy. It is a mooted question, where to look for the native 

 country ot this plant, and whether or not we owe the different varieties of the true 

 vhiifera to one or to several countries, and to one or to several original wild species, 

 which, by cultivation through uncounted centuries, and by accidental and repeated 

 hybridization, may have produced the numberless forms now known, which remind us 

 so forcibly of the iuunerous lorms of our Dog, which we also can not trace, but which 



