VITACE^E. (VINE FAMILY.) 77 



$3. LOBADIUM, Raf. Flowers polygamo-diaecious, in clustered scaly-bracted 

 spikes like catkins, preceding the leaves : disk 5-parted, large: fruit as in I, but 

 flattish: leaves 3-foliolate. (Not poisonous.) 



6. It. aroiiiatica, Ait. (FRAGRANT SUMACH.) Leaves pubescent 

 when young, thickish when old ; leaflets 3, rhombic-ovate, unequally cut-toothed, 

 the middle one wedge-shaped at the base ; flowers pale yellow. Dry rocky 

 soil, Vermont to Michigan, Kentucky, and westward. April. A low strag- 

 gling bush, the crushed leaves sweet-scented. 



ORDEB 33. VITACE^E. (VINE FAMILY.) 



Shrubs with watery juice, usually climbing by tendrils, with small regular 

 flowers, a minute truncated calyx, its limb mostly obsolete, and the stamens as 

 many as the valvate petals and opposite them ! Berry 2-cellcd, usually 4- 

 seeded. Petals 4-5, very deciduous, hypogynous or perigynous. Fila- 

 ments slender: anthers introrse. Pistil with a short style or none, and a 

 slightly 2-lobed stigma: ovary 2-celled, with 2 erect anatropous ovules 

 from the base of each. Seeds bony, with a minute embryo at the base of 

 the hard albumen, which is grooved on one side. Stipules deciduous. 

 Leaves palmately veined or compound : tendrils and flower-clusters oppo- 

 site the leaves. Flowers small, greenish. (Young shoots, foliage, &c. 

 acid.) Consists of Vitis and one or two nearly allied genera. 



1. VITIS, Tourn. GRAPB. 



Calyx very short, usually with a nearly entire border or none at all, filled 

 with a fleshy disk which bears the petals and stamens. Flowers in a com- 

 pound thyrsus; pedicels mostly umbellate-clustered. (The classical Latin 

 name of the Vine.) 



$ 1. VITIS proper. Petals 5, cohering at the top while they separate at the base, 

 and so the corolla usually Jails off' without expanding : 5 thick glands or lobes ofUte 

 disk alternating with the stamens, between them and ttie base of the ovary : flowers 

 dioecious-polygamous in all the American sjiecies, exhaling a fragrance like that of 

 Mignonette : leaves simple, rounded and heart-sliaped, often variously and variably 

 lobed. 



* Leaves woolly beneath, when lobed having d>tuse or rounded sinuses. 



1. V. Lafrrusca, L. (NORTHERN FOX-GRAPE.) BrancJdets and younn 

 leaves very woolly ; leaves continuing rusty-woolly beneath ; fertile panicles compact ; 

 berries large (j'-| in diameter). Moist thickets, common. June. Berries 

 ripe in Sept., dark purple or amber-color, with a tough musky pulp. Improved 

 by cultivation, it has given rise to the Isabella Grape, &c. 



2. V. SEStivuIis, Michx. (SUMMER GRAPE.) Young leaves downy with 

 loose cobwebby hairs beneath, smoothish when old, green above ; fertile panicles com- 

 pound, long and slender : berries small ( J' or % in diameter), black with a bloom. 

 Thickets, common; climbing high. May, June. Berries pleasant, ripe in 

 Oct. 



