32 MY GARDEN 



net's vine, take gorgeous tints of scarlet and crimson 

 during October. V.Thunbergii will be found even more 

 splendid in death. Numerous other rare and distinct 

 vines I lack, and two of the most beautiful, V. arborea 

 and V. flexuosa major, from the Southern United 

 States, I have only seen at Kew Gardens. Of late we 

 can record notable additions to the family. It seems 

 that Vitis, Ampelopsis, and Cissus are now, very wisely, 

 merged into one genus. It is pleasant for us duffers 

 to know that even the highest botanical swells may 

 get themselves into hopeless muddles sometimes. 

 This happened with respect to vitis, for many of the 

 varieties are dioecious, which means that the male 

 and female plants keep themselves to themselves 

 just as husbands and wives have occasionally been 

 known to flourish best in separate establishments. 

 Deluded by this aloofness, botanists have given dif- 

 ferent names to the different sexes ; and some species 

 have actually had to struggle under as many synonyms, 

 or aliases, as a begging-letter writer. Then the great 

 men show one another up, and you and I snigger, in 

 our rude amateur way, when we hear of professors 

 coming to grief thus and actually getting hot about 

 it, and saying bitter things concerning stamens and 

 pistils and so forth. It is the mark of the average 

 small professor that he absolutely hates to be wrong. 

 He begins by seeking truth ; too often he ends by 

 denying it to every theory other than his own. 

 Indeed, the curse of teaching seems to be that one 

 so often develops from it an objection to learn. But 

 now all these errors about vitis are going to be cor- 



