- AMERICAN MANUAL 



OF THE 



GRAPE VINES. 



Botanical name VITIS. 

 French name VIGNE, the grape Faisin. 

 German name REBE, the grape Trauhe. 

 Italian name VITE, the grape Uva. 



Genus Vitis. Perfectly trioical. Calyx cuplike, 5 

 lobed before the flowers expand, entire afterwards. Co- 

 rolla of five petals oblong obtuse hooded, adheringat the 

 summit. Five long stamina opposed to the petals. Pistil 

 on a glandular disk, a stigma subsessile, capitate entire. 

 Berry one celled, 2 to 5 seeds obcordate. Woody vines 

 with alternate petiolate and stipulate leaves; tendrils 

 and thyrsoidal racemes of flowers andfruits, opposite ta 

 the leaves. 



HISTORY. I propose to give here a monography of 

 the North American Grape Vines. The subject is new 

 and obscure. The botanical species are scarcely indi- 

 cated, and their numberless varieties have been over- 

 looked by our best writers. I have ascertained about 

 40 species and 100 varieties, but I must confess that it 

 is not always easy to say whether one or the other. I 

 was once inclined to consider all our Grapes (like our 

 Strawberries) as varieties of a single species, the Fitis 

 vinifera of the old Continent, and it must be so, unless 

 that kind is also divided into others, such as V. labrii- 

 sea, V. laciniosa, V. aurea, V. farinosa, V. aira, V. 

 corinthiaca, &tc. to distinguish the wild, cut-leaved, 

 mealy, black, and Currant Vines of Europe. While 

 all these have been united to V. vinifera, our native 

 Grapes had been made into 8 or 10 species, which dif- 

 fer less than those, and can hardly be distinguished from 

 them, in an exclusive point of view, except by their 

 more permanent polygamy. My attempt to classify our 

 Vines is therefore arduous, many species being described 

 by authors under the same name ; but I hope will be 

 A 



