VITACEJB. (VINE FAMILY.) 77 



3. LOBA.DIUM, Eaf. Flowers polygamo-dioecious, in clustered scaly-bracted 

 spikes like catkins, preceding the leaves: disk Smarted, large: fruit as in 1, but 

 jlattish: leaves 3-foliolate. (Not poisonous.) 



6. B. aroiuafica, Ait. (FRAGRANT SUMACH.) Leaves pubescent 

 when young, thickish when old ; leaflets 3, rhombic-ovate, unequally cut-toothed, 

 the middle one wedge-shaped at the base; flowers pale yellow. Dry rocky 

 soil, Vermont to Michigan, Kentucky, and westward. April. A low strag- 

 gling bush, the crushed leaves sweet-scented. 



ORDER 33. VITACE^E. (VINE FAMILY.) 



Shrubs with watery juice, usually climbing by tendrils, with small regular 

 flowers, a minute truncated calyx, its limb mostly obsolete, and the stamens as 

 many as the valvate petals and opposite them! Berry 2-celled, usually 4- 

 seeded. Petals 4 5, very deciduous, hypogynous or perigynous. Fila- 

 ments slender : anthers introrse. Pistil with a short style or none, and a 

 slightly 2-lobed stigma: ovary 2-celled, with 2 erect anatropous ovules 

 from the base of each. Seeds bony, with a minute embryo at the base of 

 the hard albumen, which is grooved on one side. Stipules deciduous. 

 Leaves palmately veined or compound : tendrils and flower-clusters oppo 

 site the leaves. Flowers small, greenish. (Young shoots, foliage, &c 

 acid.) Consists of Vitis and one or two nearly allied genera. 



1. VtTIS, Tourn. GRAPE. 



Calyx very short, usually with a nearly entire border or none at all, filled 

 with a fleshy disk which bears the petals and stamens. Flowers in a com- 

 pound thyrsus ; pedicels mostly umbellate-clustered. (The classical Latin 

 name of the Vine.) 



1. VITIS proper. Petals 5, cohering at the top while they separate at the base, 

 and so the corolla usually falls off without expanding : 5 thick glands or lobes of the 

 disk alternating with the stamens, between them and the base of the ovary : flowers 

 dioecious-polygamous in all the American species, exhaling a fragrance like that of 

 Mignonette : leaves simple, rounded and heart-shaped, often variously and variably 

 lobed. 



* Leaves wootty beneath, when lobed having obtuse or rounded sinuses. 



1. V. JLatorusca, L. (NORTHERN FOX-GRAPE.) Branchlets and young 

 leaves very woolly ; leaves continuing rusty-woolly beneath ; fertile panicles compact ; 

 berries large ('-f in diameter). Moist thickets, common. June. Berries 

 ripe in Sept., dark purple or amber-color, with a tough musky pulp. Improved 

 by cultivation, it has given rise to the Isabella Grape, &c. 



2. V. SEStivaliS, Michx. (SUMMER GRAPE.) Young leaves downy with 

 loose cobwebby hairs beneath, smoothish when old, green above ; fertile panicles com- 

 pound, long and slender : berries small ( J' or ' in diameter), black with a bloom. 

 Thickets, common; climbing high. May, June. Berries pleasant, ripe in 

 Oct. 



7* 



