BUSHBEBG CATALOGUE. 



THE TRUE GRAPE-VINES OF THE UNITED STATES. 



BT DR. G. EXGELMANN. 



The Grape-vines are among the most variable 

 plants, not only through cultivation, by which 

 numberless varieties have been produced, but 

 even in their wild state, in which climate, soil, 

 shade, humidity, and perhaps natural hybridi- 

 zation, have originated such a multiplicity and 

 such an intermixture of forms, that it is most 

 difficult to recognize the original types and to 

 refer the different given forms to their proper 

 alliances. Only by carefully studying a large 

 number of forms from all parts of the -country, 

 in their peculiar mode of growth, and especially 

 their fructification, or rather their seeds, are we 

 able to arrive at any thing like a satisfactory 

 disposition of these plants. 



Before I proceed to the classification of our 

 Grape-vines, I deem it necessary to make a few 

 preliminary remarks : 



All the true Grape-vines bear fertile flowers 

 on one stock, and sterile flowers on another 

 separate stock, and are, therefore, called poly- 

 gamous, or, not quite correctly, dioecious. The 

 sterile' plants do bear male flowers with 

 abortive pistils, so that while they never pro- 

 duce fruit themselves, they may assist in fer- 

 tilizing the others; the fertile flowers, how- 

 ever are hermaphrodites, containing both or- 

 gans and capable of ripening fruit without 

 the assistance of the male plants.* Real female 

 flowers, without any stamens, do not seem ever 

 to have been observed. Both forms, the male 

 and the hermaphrodite, or if preferred, those 

 with sterile and those with complete flowers, 

 are found mixed in the native localities of the 

 wild plants, but only the fertile plants ,have 

 been selected for cultivation, and thus it hap- 

 pens that to the cultivator only these are known, 



* These fertile plant" however, are of two kinds; some 

 areperfect hermaphrodites, with long and sti aig t stam< ns 

 around the pistil; the others be. r smaller stamens, 

 shorter than the pistil, which so n bend downward and 

 curve under it; these may be called imperfect hermaphro- 

 dites, approaching females, and they do not seem to be 

 as fruitful as the perfect hermaphrodites, unless other- 

 wise fertilized. 



It is proper here, to insist on the fact that nature has 

 not produced the male plants without a definite object, 

 and this object is, without any doubt, found in the 

 more perfect fertilization of the hermaphrodite flow- 

 ers, as it is a well establish- d fact that such cross 

 fertilization products more abundant and healthier 

 fruit. Vine growers might take a hint from these ob- 

 servations and plant a few male stocks in their vine- 

 yards, say 1 to 40 or 50 of their feitile stocks, and might 

 expect fiom such a course healthier fruit, which proba- 

 bly would resist rot mid other diseases better than fruit 

 grown in the ordinary way I would expect such bene- 

 ficial influence especially in all varieties that have short 

 stamens, such as the Taylor. JNlale stocks can be easily 

 obtained either in the woods or from seeds. It is of 

 course understood that the males ought to belong to the 

 same species (not necessari y to the same variety), as 

 the fertile plants of the same vineyard . European vine 

 growers may also profit by this suggestion. 



and as the Grape-vine of the Old World^ ha: 

 been in cultivation for thousands of years, it hai 

 resulted that this hermaphrodite character o 

 its flowers has been mistaken for a botanical pe 

 culiarity, by which it was to be distinguished 

 not only from our American Grape-vines, bu 

 also from the wild grapes of the Old World 

 But plants raised from the seeds of this, as wel 

 as of any other true Grape-vine, generally fur- 

 nish as many sterile as fertile specimens, while 

 those produced by layering or cuttings, oJ 

 course only propagate the individual charactei 

 of the mother-plant. 



The peculiar disposition of the tendrils in the 

 Grape-vines, first indicated by Prof. A. Braun 

 of Berlin, furnishes an important characteristic 

 for the distinction of one of our most cominonlj 

 cultivated species, Vitis Labrusca, its wild and 

 its cultivated varieties, from all others. In this 

 species and it is the only true Vitis exhibiting 

 it the tendrils (or their equivalent, an inflores- 

 cence), are found opposite each leaf, and this ar- 

 rangement I designate as continuous tendrils. 

 All the other species, known to me, exhibit a 

 regular alternation of two leaves, each having a 

 tendril opposite it, with a third leaf without 

 such a tendril, and this arrangement may be 

 named intermittent tendrils. Like all vegetable 

 characters, this is not an absolute one; to ob- 

 serve it well it is necessary to examine well- 

 grown canes found in early summer, and neither 

 sprouts of extraordinary vigor nor stunted au- 

 tumnal branchlets. The few lowest leaves of a 

 cane have no opposite tendrils, but after the 

 second or third leaf the regularity in the ar- 

 rangement of the tendrils, as above described, 

 rarely fails to occur. In weak branches we 

 sometimes find tendrils irregularly placed oppo- 

 site leaves, or, sometimes, none at all. 



It is a remarkable fact, connected with this 

 law of vegetation, that most Grape-vines bear 

 only two inflorescences (consequently two 

 bunches of grapes) upon the same cane, while 

 in the forms belonging to Labrusca there are 

 often three, and sometimes, in vigorous shoots, 

 four or five, or rarely, even six in succession, 

 each opposite a leaf. Whenever, in rare cases, 

 in other species, a third or fourth infloresence 

 occurs, there will always be found a barren leaf 

 (without an opposite inflorescence) between the 

 second and third ones. 



Young seedlings of all the Grape-vines are 

 glabrous or only very slightly hairy. The cob- 

 webby or cottony down, so characteristic of 

 some species, makes its appearance only in the 

 older or in the adult plants ; but in some of their 



