GRAPE FAMILY 



subtle and delicious, as all who have Grape-vines know. 

 The fruiting raceme carries fewer than twenty berries 

 in the wild type ; the berries, large and nearly spherical, 

 range from purple-black, the common color, to reddish 

 brown and amber-green; are variable in taste but 

 mostly sweetish, musky, and sometimes slightly as- 

 tringent. 



VIRGINIA CREEPER 



Ampelopsis quinquefolia. Parthenocissus quinquefoUa 



Ampelopsis, Greek, like a vine. 



The familiar creeping, trailing, and climbing vine, 

 common in its wild state in open woods and wayside 

 thickets, from Maine to the Dakotas and southward, 

 may be recognized by its leaf of five leaflets. 



Stem. — Climbing both by tendrils and by aerial roots. 



Leaves. — Alternate, digitately compound; leaflets five, 

 elliptic or oblong-ovate, coarsely serrate. 



Flowers. — Small, greenish, perfect or dioecious, borne 

 in loose flat clusters. 



Calyx. — Minute. 



Corolla. — Of five petals; spreading. 



Stamens. — Five. 



Pistil. — Ovary two-celled, style short, thick. 



Fruit. — Blue berries, two to three-seeded; borne in 

 broad open clusters; peduncle and pedicels red. 



The Virginia Creeper is, it seems to me, our most 

 beautiful native climbing vine. In the open woods 

 it embraces many a tree trunk; by the roadside it 

 clambers and billows along the fences; failing support 

 it trails over the ground. It comforts desolate places 



