NOMENCLATURE OP GRAPES. 219 



coast to the mountains ; it even thrives and is fruitful when 

 growing in the barren sand-hills of Carolina and Florida. 



4th. Winter-Grape, Vitis serotina. Cotyledon palmated. 

 This is a vine remarkable for its sweet flowers. It mounts 

 to the top of high trees ; the stems and twigs more hard and 

 ligneous than the bunch grape, to which I think it approaches 

 the nearest. The leaves are small, cordated, smooth, thin 

 and serrated. The fruit bunches branched, but the berries 

 small and black, not so large as currants ; the fruit not ripe 

 till late in the autumn, and the juice extremely sour and ill- 

 tasted, so that even birds will not eat them till meliorated 

 by the winter frosts. 



I shall now mention the varieties that appear to me to have 

 arisen from a commixture of the several species or races. 



Alexander's or Tasked s grape, is a large grape, black or 

 blue, the size of the fruit of the Vit. vinifera of the old conti- 

 nent. The grapes approach to the elliptical figure. They 

 are, when fully ripe, perfectly black, and as sweet as any grape. 

 (?auth.) Many persons think them too luscious. Before they 

 are quite ripe, some think they possess a little of the stingy 

 flavour of the fox-grape, but my taste never could discover it. 

 It has been supposed to be a hybrid between Vit. sylvestris 

 (common bunch grape) and Vit. vinifera, because it was found 

 on the rocky hills near the river Schuylkill, above the upper 

 ferry, in the neighbourhood of an old vineyard of European 

 grapes : but I believe it to be an American. 



Blanks grape. This is an excellent grape. The bunches 

 large, branched, and well shaped, six or eight inches in length. 

 The berries large, about the size of the common white grape 

 of Europe, and round or oblate ; when perfectly ripe, of a 

 dark purple or red wine colour ; the juice sweet and lively, 

 having a little musky flavour, with a small portion of an agree- 

 able astringency, somewhat like our best bunch or wild grapes, 

 though much sweeter than any of them. If this grape is what 

 I take it to be, a genuine American, it is a hybrid or variety. 

 It was found in Virginia, where it is called the Virginia mus- 

 cadel, and sent to me by the late Col. Bland. This excel- 



