Vitis and Labrusca 



the tier above it. Otherwise, the whipping of the 

 branch and the vine-shoots in the wind would damage 

 the hanging blossoms or fruit. 



To keep out beasts, especially the mischievous 

 goat, it was necessary to enclose the vineyard with a 

 hedge (ib. 371) of ' paliurus,' or some other thorny 

 shrub, and the soil had to be kept open by deep and 

 frequent hoeing (ib. 399 sq.). In fact, as Virgil says, 

 to the work there is no end. 



The wide cultivation and the great value of the vine 

 gave rise to a technical vocabulary for its various 

 parts. As with other trees, the name for the main 

 stem was ' truncus.' The rods left on the tree after 

 pruning were ' palmites,' and the eyes or buds on 

 them ' gemmae,' or sometimes ' oculi.' Thus Virgil's 

 sign of spring is accurately expressed, ' laeto turgent 

 in palmite gemmae ' (Ec. vii. 48). The shoots which 

 spring from the eyes were 'pampini.' These are 

 longest in autumn before the general pruning, hence 

 1 pampineo autumno ' (Ge. ii. 5). The summer 

 pruning, in which superfluous ' pampini ' were re- 

 moved, was 'pampinatio,' and 'putatio' is also found 

 in this sense, especially in poetry, though it is more 

 properly applied either to the general removal of the 

 ' pampini ' in winter, or to the pruning of the sup- 

 porting elm or other tree. Lexicons have a way 

 of rendering both ' palmes ' and ' pampinus ' by 

 ' tendril.' This is absurd, for tendrils do not produce 

 buds, nor are they, as tendrils, pruned off, but only 

 as growing on a 'pampinus.' Technically, 'racemus' 

 is the stalk of the bunch of grapes, ' uva,' but is 



141 



