Plant: Very stocky, vigorous, moderately branching, rapidly tapering, climbing moderately, 

 about same as V. labrusca, 20 to 40 feet or more in rich sandy soils; expanding tips not leafy; 

 aspect generally open; seldom dense canopy-like, with dark lively green foliage. 



Roots: Large, little fibrous, rather fleshy, but very firm, deeply penetrating. 



Wood : When young, cylindrical, whitish or brownish tomentose, soon becoming floccose and 

 disappearing in the mature annual wood, which is a dark reddish-brown and often having numerous 

 short, black, glandular prickles, especially near the nodes, as in V. labrusca, and a distinct pru- 

 nose bloom about the nodes and sometimes covering the internodes, which with the prickles 

 remain into winter; wood dense and hard, in sectional view of mature annual wood, showing 

 numerous rays with fine pores between; nodes slightly enlarged, much bent; diaphragm 1/16' to 

 1/10' thick, biconcave; buds large, globular, conical or obscurely triangular, acute, covered with 

 shining reddish-brown scales, underneath w r hich is an abundance of brownish-red wool, in expand- 

 ing medium size, open, rosy or crimson; tendrils intermittent, rarely 3 to 5 in succession, ordi- 

 narily once forked in var. glauca, twice in the typical forms, long, slightly cottony in glauca, or 

 rarely smooth when young, to densely rusty woolly in the species, at first finely striated, color 

 reddish or green, becoming same color as wood at maturity, strong, persistent; internodes 

 usually short, or of medium length, 2' to 4' or more; pith medium, slightly enlarged at lower 

 end near diaphragm, pale brown. 



Leaves: Stipules short 1/16' to 1/8' long, broad, pinkish, with thin rusty cotton on outer 

 face; petiole in full gr< wn leaf large and strong, average length 5', cylindrical or slightly flattened, 

 with a very narrow, shallow groove above scarcely noticeable, being hidden by pubescence or 

 tomentum along its margins, striations obscure, with thick, velvety pubescence or tomentum, or 

 both, along the striae, color purplish or pale red; blade large in the species to very large in var. 

 glauca, V to 8', often more, broad, average width of many leaves 6'; blade always broader than 

 long, generally twice or more the length of petiole; general outline circular; basal sinus generally 

 broadly or narrowly A shaped with double curved sides, sometimes rounded, with limbs 

 approaching or lapping, border sometimes nearly regular, mostly obtusely shouldered or variously 

 3 to 5, sometimes 7 lobed; lateral sinuses rounded, occasionally having a large tooth at their base, 

 as in V. -vim/era, the lobes more or less closing up or lapping across the sinuses, giving a handsome 

 appearance to the leaf; teeth very variable, in a large, irregular, with margins less convex, some- 

 times scalloped, scarcely mucronate, resembling many V. mnifera, while in b smaller, convex, 

 with small, distinct mu'cron, often approaching V. cinerea in this respect; venation from the 

 usually 6 and 7 (in lobed form a) to 7 and 8 (in shouldered form b) not quite opposite pairs of 

 very prominent ribs, and covered densely with more or less rusty cotton in the typical form of 

 Southern Texas and Louisiana or whitish tomentum in Northern Texas and Missouri specimens, 

 which becomes floccose with maturity in both. The young opening leaves pinkish or crimson 

 and densely tomentose, the upper surface slightly wrinkled, soon losing its tomentum, becoming 

 smooth, dark lively green; lower surface becoming pale, rusty ash color, abundantly woolly 

 in a, and bluish glaucose green, with thin or little w r ool in b. 



Cluster: Fertile, varying from below medium in a to large 3' to 10' or more long, in b, 

 generally cylindrical with a large shoulder and very compact, generally simple and rather open, 

 in a, rarely so in b; divisions simple; peduncle medium or short; rachis cottony or nearly smooth, 

 bluish-green when young; pedicels 1/6' to 1/4' long, enlarged at summit, warty; sterile, much 

 larger and more compound. 



Flowers : Fertile, tip of buds before opening, crimson, stamens weak, recurved and bending 

 laterally close to base of the large ovary; seldom self-fertile; style short, thick; stigma large to 

 medium, sometimes resembling (in form a) , V. candicans, and (in form 6) , V. cinerea. Staminate, 

 bud same as fertile, stamens strong, ascending. 



Berries : 1/2' to 1' in diameter, in a generally much larger than in b, often more or less oblate 

 in a; spherical in b; color black or sometimes dark purple, covered with thin bloom in a, more 

 in b; in a commonly drops very easily, as soon as ripe, b hangs much better and occasionally 



