THE HEBBEMONT TYPE 81 



usual, opinions are divided. Practically all authors 

 are agreed that the Norton's Virginia and CynthiaDa 

 tribe is a direcl offshoot of the wild summer-grape 

 {Vitis astivalis, Pig. 16) of the Middle states and the 

 South. The Eerbemont and Le Nbir have been held 

 by most writers to have been descended from the same 

 mid species, but our contemporaneous student of the 

 genus, T. V. Munson, derives them from an unrecog- 

 nized and andescribed European species. "The Eer- 

 ,,, ' I " ,, " , as 'Brown French,' and Le Noir or Jacques 

 as 'Blue French,' he has traced," writes Munson of 

 his own studies, "back through the Bourquin family 

 of Savannah. Georgia, to their bringing to Georgia 

 in its early settlement over 150 years ago from South 

 France. ****** l n nonor of Gngie Bour . 



quin, who so well assisted me to trace out the origin, 

 in this country, of Eerbemont and Le Noir, I named 

 the group as a new species, Vitis Bourquiniana." With 

 all the uncertainties and gaps in the records and tra- 

 ditions of events pertaining to the cultivation of plant-, 

 and with the constant intervention of seedlings and 

 new varieties, great dependence cannot be placed apon 

 the historical genealogy of the grape. The difficulty 

 is all the greater because the Bpecies of grapes are 

 themselves so variable and so like one another, thai 

 errors can occur in the records almosl before on< 



The student musl rely more npon the botanical 

 features of the plants than upon the histories of them. 

 For myself, while admitting thai my facilities for the 

 • v,lll| > of the question have been less than those of 

 Munson, I am convinced thai this Eerbemonl tribe is 

 imeliorated form of the native summer-grape, Vitis 

 mlis. Sum.' of the varieties maj be hybrids of 



