112 VITACE.E. (VINE FAMILY.) 



§ 3. LOBADIUM, Raf. Flowers polygamo-ditecious, in clustered scaly-bracted 



spikes like catkins, preceding the leaves : disk 5-parted, large : fruit as in § 1, but 



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



6. R. aromatica, Ait. (Fragrant S.) 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, from 



Vermont westward and southward. April, May. — A straggling bush ; the 



crushed leaves sweet-scented. 



Order 27. VITACEiE. (Vine Family.) 



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

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

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

 seecled. — 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 cell. 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. Grape. 



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

 an adnate fleshy disk which bears the petals and stamens. — Flowers in a com- 

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



§ 1. VITIS proper. Petals 5, cohering at the top, separating at the base, and so 

 the corolla ■usually falls off without expanding : 5 thick glands or lobes of the disk 

 alternating ivith the stamens : flowers polygamous or diozcious in all the American 

 species, exhaling a fragrance like that of Mignonette : leaves simple, rounded and 

 heart-shaped, often variously and variably lobed. 



* Leaves woolly beneath, when lobed having obtuse or rounded sinuses. 

 —It "V. Labriisca, L. (Northern Fox-Grape.) Branchlets and young 

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

 berries large. — Moist thickets : common. June. Fruit ripe in Sept. or Oct., 

 dark purple or amber-color, with a tough musky pulp. Improved by cultivation, 

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



2. V. aestivalis, 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, black with a bloom. — Thickets: com- 

 mon. May, June. — Berries pleasant, ripe in Oct. 



# * Leaves smooth or nearly so and bright green both sides, commonly pubescent on the 

 veins beneath, either incisely lobed or undivided. 

 ^ty, 3. V. cordifdlia, Michx. (Winter or Frost Grape.) Leaves thin, 



