PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 193 



his classification of varieties with reference to the downy 

 character and veining of the leaves, points absolutely 

 indifferent to cultivators, and which consequently must 

 far better represent the natural conditions of the plant. 

 He says that the wild vines, of which he had seen an 

 immense quantity between the Black and Caspian Seas, 

 may be grouped into two subspecies which he describes, 

 and declares are recognizable at a distance, and which 

 are the point of departure of cultivated vines, at least in 

 Armenia and the neighbourhood. He recognized them 

 near Mount Ararat, at an altitude where the vine is 

 not cultivated, where, indeed, it could not be cultivated. 

 Other characters for instance, the shape and colour of 

 the grapes vary in each of the subspecies. We cannot 

 enter here into the purely botanical details of Kolenati's 

 paper, any more than into those of Regel's more recent 

 work on the genus Vitis ; 1 but it is well to note that a 

 species cultivated from a very remote epoch, and which 

 has perhaps two thousand described varieties, presents 

 in the district where it is most ancient, and probably 

 presented before all cultivation, at least two principal 

 forms, with others of minor importance. If the wild 

 vines of Persia and Kashmir, of Lebanon and Greece, 

 were observed with the same care, perhaps other sub- 

 species of prehistoric antiquity might be found. The 

 idea of collecting the juice of the grape and of allowing 

 it to ferment may have occurred to different peoples, 

 principally in Western Asia, where the vine abounds and 

 thrives. Adolphe Pictet, 2 who has, in common with 

 numerous authors, but in a more scientific manner, con- 

 sidered the historical, philological, and even mythological 

 questions relating to the vine among ancient peoples, 



Regel, Acta Horti Imp. Petrop., 1873. In this short review of the 

 genus, M. Hegel gives it as his opinion that Vitis vinifera is a hybrid 

 between two wild species, V. vulpina and V. Idbrusca, modified by culti- 

 vation ; but he gives no proof, and his characters of the two wild 

 species are altogether unsatisfactory. It is much to be desired that 

 the wild and cultivated vines of Europe and Asia should be compared 

 with regard to their seeds, which furnish excellent distinctions, according 

 to Englemann's observations on the American vines. 



1 Ad. Pictet, Origincs Indo-Eur., 2nd edit., vol. i. pp. 298-321. 



O 



