I04 



THE GRAPES OF NEW YORK. 



The sexual status of the grape has always been a source of misunder- 

 standing. The earlier botanists spoke of American vines as dioecious, that 

 is, bearing staminate and pistillate flowers on separate individuals. In this, 

 as was noted on page 98, they were corrected by Bartram, in so far as Ameri- 

 can species were concerned, he stating that the vines of America were 

 polygamous (showing staminate and hermaphrodite plants). Bartram 

 did not presume to speak as to the sex of the flowers of the Old World grape. 

 Later it was determined that the cultivated varieties of Europe were always 

 hermaphrodite and that staminate forms were unknown. Engelmann' 

 explains this so well and with such apparent satisfaction that we cannot 

 do better than quote him here. " All the true Grape-vines bear fertile 

 flowers on one stock and sterile flowers on another separate stock, and are 

 therefore called polygamous, or, not quite correctly, dioecious. The sterile 

 plants do bear male flowers with abortive pistils, so that while they never 

 produce fruit themselves, they may assist in fertilizing the others: the 

 fertile flowers, however, are hermaphrodites containing both organs — 

 stamens and pistils — and are capable of ripening fruit without the assist- 

 ance of the male plants. Real female flowers without any stamens do 

 not seem ever to have been observed. Both forms, the male and the 

 hermaphrodite, or if preferred those with sterile and those with complete 

 flowers, are found mixed in their native localities of the wild plants, but of 

 course only the fertile plants have been selected for cultivation, and thus 

 it happens that to the cultivator only these are known ; and as the Grape- 

 vine of the Old World has been in cultivation for thousands of years, 

 it has resulted that this hermaphrodite character of its flowers has been 

 mistaken for a botanical peculiarity, by wliich it was to be distinguished, 

 not only from our American Grape-vines, but also from the wild grapes of 

 the old world. But plants raised from the seeds of this as well as any other 

 true Grape-vine, generally furnish as many sterile as fertile specimens, 

 while those propagated by layering or by cuttings, of course, only continue 

 the individual character of the mother-plant or stock." The accompanying 

 plate shows various forms of grape flowers. 



He further says in a foot-note: " These fertile plants, however, are 

 of two kinds; some are perfect licrmaphroditcs, with long and straight 



' Bush. Cat., 1883:9. 



