Dr. Engelmann. 
GRAPE MANUAL. 
Classification. 17 
often resemble a Lindenleaf, with a rounded 
but usually rather narrow sinus ; by the large 
loose inflorescence, which opens its flowers 
rather later than any other of our species; by 
the small black berries, about four lines in 
ter, without a blooin: of a pleasantly 
acid taste, until frost erect them, and by 
the small, plump seed with a short oak. 
is species is found in rich soif in the Mis- 
sissippi Valley from Central Illinois to Louisi- 
ana and Texas, especially in bottom lands and 
along the banks of lakes, in situations where 
we scarcely ever meet with stivalis. It is 
quite abundant in such localities near St. 
Louis. 
9. Yirrs CorprroLtiA, Michaux. This is 
the tallest of our climbers at home in our deep 
bottom woods, but often also a low trailer over 
bushes and hedges, well known as the Win- 
ter, or Frost grape, flowering late and matur- 
ing late its strongly flavored, shining black 
berries. 
The plant is spots or the branchlets and 
lower surface ves somewhat hairy; 
branchlets fiatstinetly angular (in this re- 
cs) 
wanting; leaves rather large, three to four 
nches wide, or more, not lobed at all, or slight- 
clusters, blooming rather late 
(three to four lines through), black and shin- 
ing, with a peculiarly disagreable and strong 
flavor ; edible only after frost ; seed, with slight 
or strong raphe 
A common plant from the Middle States 
southward to Texas; not known, I believe, in 
northern New York or New England, but not 
rare in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and 
found also near the city of New York; very 
common in the deep soil of the western river 
valleys, where it takes its fullest development. 
There the trunk sometimes reaches thirty to 
thirty-eight inches in circumference (southern 
Missouri, along the Iron Mountain Railr oad) ; 
whether the trunk found by Mr. Ravenel at 
Darien, Georgia, measuring forty-four inches 
around, belongs to this species, I cannot tell, 
but his supposition that it was stivalis is 
quite improbable; the statement of newspa- 
pers that a Grape-vine in Gulf Hammock, i 
Florida, had a circumference 
inches, is considered a fish story’ by Florida 
botan ists. 
of sixty-nine | 
simi Pantone es 
the small stipules, the broad diaphragms, the 
character of the seeds, the circumstance that it 
don’t grow from cuttings, and the 2 flower- 
ing time, abundantly distinguish 
from Vitis riparia, with which fe pte 
thrown together so long and so obstinately. 
perhaps one hundred ears or more, and ane 
thence found its way into other European 
gardens, without, however, as it seems, havin, 
atuvracted the attention of botanists, since its 
first publication, in 1794. 
_ Vahl’s description is accurate enough, with 
the exception of its native country, which he 
gives as ‘‘ Virginia,’’? a negligence or igno- 
rance which we must not criticise too severely 
in botanists of a century ago. The seed was 
originally brought to Paris probably by French 
missionaries, who, as is well known, roamed 
about in the Misaissipord Valley one and two 
hundred years ago. Soon after the publica- 
tion of Vahl’s description of this grape, above 
mentioned, bias chaux discovered this intoreat- 
Ul the 
of ihe ii in Illinois,” and named it V. 
rubra. He don’t seem to have recognized the 
vine which he might have seen growing under 
his eyes in Paris, and eventually he merged 
his specimens of this Vitis in his herbarium 
under V. riparia. 
Last fall Mr. H. Eggert, of St. Louis, re-dis_ 
covered this long neglected plant on the banks 
of the Mississippi, opposite Alton, and collected 
it there again this summer, when it proved to 
ean be no doubt ao the identity of this plant — 
with Vahl’s V. palmata and Michaux’s Rubra, 
nor of its entire distinctness from Riparia. — 
is found, with this last one, covering wither 
thickets and other bushes in low grounds 
smooth | but binge a | 
Michaux name is. The prreetestaites ; 
thick. sa leaves have a broad aoe ee a 
are shallow or often deeply three, rarely 1 
lobed, the lobes usually drawn out into long © 
and slender points; the under side is often — 
