98 XXVI. AMPELIDEX [Vitis. 



Branches densely tomentose. 



Flowers in large compound panicles ; petals connate . 4. V. lanata. 



Flowers in compact cylindrical racemes ; petals distinct 5. V. indica. 



Leaves simple ; fl. tetramerous, in dichotomous cymes . 6. V. adnata. 



Leaves simple ; stems fleshy, quadrangular ; 11. tetramerous 7. V. quadrangularis. 

 Leaves trifoliolate. 



Flowers pentamerous . . . . . . . 8. V. himalayana. 



Flowers tetramerous, in leaf-opposed cymes ; leaves rough 9. V. carnosa. 



Flowers tetramerous, in axillary cymes ; leaves glabrous .10. V. lanceolaria. 



1. V. vinifera, Linn, j W. & A. Prodr. 130. The grape vine. Sans. 

 Drdksha ; Arab. Ainab ; Pers. Angur. Vern. Dakh, dakki, drdksha, 

 angur. Local, Ldnang (fruit, dakhang), Kunawar. 



A large woody climber, with long, bifid tendrils. Leaves glabrous 

 above, clothed beneath with grey, floccose, deciduous tomentum, suborbi- 

 cular with cordate base, more or less deeply 5-lobed, edge cut into large, un- 

 equal, acute teeth ; basal nerves 5, the midrib with 4-5 pair of prominent 

 main lateral nerves. Petiole generally shorter than leaf, but longer than 

 half its length. Flowers green, fragrant, pentamerous, on slender pedicels 

 longer than flower, in umbelliform cymes, which form large pyramidal 

 compound panicles, one of the lower branches of the inflorescence sometimes 

 terminating in a short tendril. Bracts oblong, early deciduous. Petals 

 oblong, cohering at the top, separating from the base, and raised by the 

 development of the stamens. 



Indigenous in Armenia, the Caucasus, other parts of Western Asia, and 

 probably also in Bulgaria, Thracia, and Greece, where the vine is found as a 

 large woody climber on Ostrya, Fraxinus, Platanus, and other trees, in 

 shady forests and moist valleys. In the N.W. Himalaya, also, the vine is 

 often found apparently wild, but it is not always easy to distinguish it from 

 some of the other species (Thorns. "West. Him. 348). The native country of 

 the vine cannot precisely be defined, for whenever cultivated under favourable 

 climatic conditions, it spreads readily. So much, however, is certain, that its 

 cultivation, both in Syria and Greece, is as old as the oldest historical records 

 which we possess of those countries ; that Greek colonists and traders imported 

 it into Italy at an early age (olvos, vinum) ; that from Western Asia and South- 

 Eastern Europe its cultivation has gradually spread over the rest of Europe ; 

 and that from Europe it has been introduced to the Cape, temperate Australia, 

 and North America. 



The present northern limit of vineyards on a large scale is at 47 30' N. 

 lat. in the Bretagne, and thence runs eastward, slightly tending towards the 

 north, crossing the Rhine at lat. 50 45', and attaining its northernmost 

 point in Silesia at lat. 51 55'. (Grisebach, Vegetation der Erde, i. 126.) 

 The comparison of this line with the lines of equal temperature during the 

 different seasons, shows that it is the want of sufficient summer-heat which 

 prevents its profitable cultivation further north in Western Europe. In the 

 middle ages, however, there were vineyards in the south of England, and not 

 far from the Baltic. In India, extensive vineyards were formerly in Kunawar, 

 from Jani to Sangnam (between 5500 and 9000 ft.), and in some of the other in- 

 ner and drier valleys of the N.W. Himalaya. But the vine disease broke out in 

 these secluded valleys (between 1855 and 1860), and since then the cultivation 

 has greatly diminished. Excellent grapes are grown in. Kashmir, the plains of 

 North- West India, the Dekkan, and in other parts of India, but not in the moist 

 tropical climate of the western coast below Ghat, and of the Burma coast. Nor 

 does the grape vine bear well in Lower Bengal. In the Himalaya the grape 





