Vitis, SAPINDACE^. 105 



Order XXVIII. VITACE^. 



Woody plants, mostly climbing by tendrils, with a watery more or less acid juice, 

 branchlets articulated and often thickened at the nodes, usually palniately veined or 

 lobed or compound alternate leaves, panicled cymose or thyrsoid inflorescence, small 

 greenish or whitish flowers, and a baccate fruit ; distinguisljed from the related 

 orders by a minute trnncato or 4 - 5-toothcd calyx, caducous or early deciduous 

 petals valvate in the btul, and tlie stamens (as in Rhamnacejr) of the same number 

 as these (4 or 5) and opposite them. — Flowers very commonly polygamous or dioe- 

 cious. Style short or conical : stigma depressed, hardly lobed. Ovules in pairs or 

 solitary in the cells of the ovary, erect, anatropous. Seeds with a thick and bony 

 coat. Embryo minute in cartilaginous albumen. Stipules sometimes manifest. 



About 250 species, in 3 or 4 genera, the principal one being the typical genus. 



1. VITIS, Tourn. Guape. 



Calyx very short or small; the border often obsolete, and the tube filled with the 

 fleshy disk, which bears the 4 or 5 thick caducous petals and the distinct stamens, 

 and in which the base of the ovary is commonly immersed. Ovary 2-celled : ovules 

 and usually the seeds a pair in each cell. — Tendrils and flower-clusters opposite the 

 leaA'es ; the former almost always at least once forked. 



In true Grapes tlie Eastern United States arc richer in species than any otlicr part of the world, 

 having 7 or 8 species, four of which have given rise to vaUia])le or promising cultivated varieties. 

 The Californian species is unpromising. 



V. yiNiFERA, Linn., the Vine of the Old World, however, flourishes in California much better 

 than in any other of the United States, and some varieties have long been in cultivation. 



1. V. Californica, Benth. Leaves tomentose or canescent, especially beneath, 

 about 3 inches in diameter, round-cordate with a deep and narrow sinus, obtuse, 

 rather coarsely serrate and often somewhat 3-lobed : fruit 4 lines in diameter, in 

 rather large clusters, purple, covered with bloom: seed broad. — Bot. Sulph. 10; 

 Engolm. in Am. Naturalist, i. 321 k\^ ix. 201). 



Ahmg fltronms, from San Diego nortl\wnrd to Rnssian IMvcr and llio Sacramento Valley. Tho 

 flavor or the fruit is rather pleasant ; its value for cnltivation lias not been tested. Tho Indians 

 of tlio Sacramento Valley call it Vavmee. 



V. Arizonica, Engelm., Am. Naturalist, ix. 269, is an allied species of Arizona and S. Utah, 

 and may be looked for in San Bernardino Co. The leaves are smaller, floccose-tomentose at first, 

 at length glabrous and shining, the sinus broader, the lobes and teeth much more acute ; fruit 

 small, in small clusters, said to be quite luscious. It should be tested under cultivation. 



Order XXIX. SAPINDACEiE. 



Trees, shrubs, or sometimes herbs, mostly with compound or lobed leaves, usu- 

 ally with unsymmetrical or irregular flowers and ovules few but seldom solitary ; 

 the order (mainly tropical) nearly impossible to define as a whole, and of which our 

 few representatives belong to almost as many suborders as genera : these more use- 

 fully characterized under the suborders. 



SuDonDER I. SAPINDACEyE proper. 



Flowers polygamous, irregular or unsymmetrical ; tho stamens more numerous 

 than the petals, seldom twice as many. Seeds without albumen. Stipules none. 



