Southern Muscadine Grapes. (V. rotundifolia.*) 



In this group all known fruiting varieties have imperfect flowers, and require staminate vines 

 of same species growing near. One staminate vine to six or eight bearing vines is sufficient. 



Varieties 



All varieties of this class require to be propagated by layering. 



Of some eight varieties of this species found wild, only two or three have become generally 

 known and planted in the South. The list is Flowers, James, Memory, Mish, Pedee, Scuppernong, 

 Tenderpulp, and Thomas. The best three of these, and all I shall describe, are James, Scupper- 

 nong, and Thomas. None are fully hardy north of 35 latitude, except in California. 



JAMES. Originated and introduced by J. Van Lindley, of North Carolina. Like all varieties 

 of this class, the vine is vigorous and perfectly healthy; cluster the largest and most prolific of 

 any pure blood of the species introduced; 8 to 15 berries, large, black, round; skin thick, flesh 

 pulpy, of fair quality, musky; seeds large; begins ripening at Denison, Texas, about August 10th, 

 and continues a month, drops when ripo like all others of the species. 



SCUPPERNONG (Syn. Bullace, Roanoke). Found by some member of Walter Raleigh's 

 colony in 1554 on an island in the Scuppernong river in North Carolina. The original vine, 

 which at first was supported by a tree, still stood at the close of the War of States like a gnarled 

 old tree, its former support having died and rotted away. Whether yet living or not I cannot 

 say. It is the only white (bronzy) variety reported that was found wild. The cluster bears two 

 to eight yellowish-amber colored large globular berries, with thick, leathery skin, yet thin in com- 

 parison with most other varieties of this class; flesh pulpy, tender for the class, flavor and odor 

 musky, different from "foxy" of Labrusca and much more agreeable; very much liked by 

 Southrons generally; seeds medium for this class, but large, as grape seeds generally; ripe in 

 August and September. Considerable quantities of wine are made from the Scuppernong in the 

 older Southern States, especially in the Carolinas, and it is considered a very delicate and charac- 

 teristic wine. (See Plate LXXXIV., page 210.) 



THOMAS. (See Plate XXXV. in Chapter I., page 105.) Found wild in South Carolina, and 

 introduced by Drury Thomas. Cluster a little larger than Scuppernong, six to ten berries; 

 berries, larger than Scuppernong, often an inch or more in diameter; skin equally thick, rather 

 more pulpy than Scuppernong, and not quite so high in sugar. 



All these varieties require much trellis room. They should be at least 16 feet apart for 

 training on the Munson Trellis (page 224). Excellent results have been obtained by pruning 

 according to the long arm renewal system. If allowed to mass, according to the old Southern 

 method, on a wide extending overhead arbor-trellis, the clusters and berries are much smaller than, 

 with pruning and training. The pruning should be done in early winter. 



Scuppernong Hybrids 



Before 1877, Dr. A. P. Wylie, of South Carolina, had made some hybrids of Scuppernong, 

 and showed fruit of them at a meeting of the American Pomological Society in Baltimore in that 

 year. These varieties were never disseminated to any considerable extent and probably all perished 

 after his death a few years later. Those produced later by Prof. A. Millardet, in France, seem 

 also to have been lost. At any rate it remained to the writer to produce the only hybrids of 

 this class that have been disseminated widely. In 1891 he saved seeds from a single Scuppernong 

 vine, having no staminate vines of this species then in his vineyards, but there were a number 

 of Post-Oak x Herbemont hybrids growing near, that flowered very late, and seemingly the only 

 source of pollen supply for the Scuppernong then blooming. The seeds grew well, producing a 

 few hundred vines, among which some half a hundred had leaves with lobes, and aspect resembling 

 some of the Post-Oak hybrids, and a few showed forked tendrils, but on the whole much more 

 like Muscadines than any other species. The writer had noted what Professor Millardet had 

 written him about "false hybrids," including all his Scuppernong hybrids as such; that while 



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