Cissus and Ampelopsis. 1 3 1 



specially those of North America and of Portuguese 

 Guinea, seem to promise well as sources by-and-by of 

 good fruit. But most of them are valuable only as orna- 

 mental plants ; sometimes for the gorgeous hues of their 

 autumnal foliage, well illustrated in the common Virginian 

 creeper, and in that incomparable house-front plant, the 

 Japanese Vitis tricuspidata, commonly called Ampelopsis 

 Veitchii; now and then for the inexpressible beauty of 

 their berries. A more lovely fruiting shrub for a garden- 

 wall than the Vitis humulifolia, again Japanese, it is 

 impossible for the world to supply; only that for per- 

 fection it needs a good old-fashioned hot summer. Then 

 its pretty foliage that of the grape-vine in miniature 

 becomes a foil to crowds of clusters of little berries of 

 the most exquisite Italian sky-blue, a spectacle unimagi- 

 nable till the eye has feasted upon it. To the Vitacese 

 belong, also, the various ornamental climbers which go 

 by the generic name of Cissus. This latter, except for 

 garden convenience, is not wanted, since, according to 

 the " Genera Plantarum," between Cissus and Vitis there 

 is not even sectional difference. Hooker and Bentham 

 also discard Ampelopsis ; they use it, rather, merely as a 

 sub-generic name. Profound interest pertains to all these 

 last-named plants in regard to the hold-fasts by which 

 they attach themselves to whatever they cling to. Their 

 strong little thousand hands branch into irregular fingers, 

 every one of which has at the tip a peculiar gland. This, 

 in due course, secretes a sticky substance of extraordinary 

 adhesive powers. So tenacious is it that the hand will 



