414 THE TRUE GRAPE-VINES OF THE UNITED STATES. 
III. THE TRUE GRAPE-VINES OF THE UNITED STATES* 
From THE BusHBERG CATALOGUE, 3d ed., St. Louis, 1883. 
THE grape-vines! are among the most variable plants, even in their wild state, in which [9 (3)] 
climate, soil, shade, humidity, and perhaps natural hybridization, have originated such a 
multiplicity and such an intermixture of forms, that it is often 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 enabled to arrive at anything like a satisfactory dis- 
_ position of these plants. (Table of grape seeds; figs. 1-33, page 13.) 
Before I proceed to the classification of our grape-vines, I deem it necessary to make a few pre- 
liminary remarks :— 
The grape-vines cultivated in that part of the United States lying east of the Rocky Mountains 
are all natives of the country, most of them picked up in the woods; some, perhaps, improved by 
cultivation ; and a few the product of natural or artificial hybridization. In that part of the country 
the wine grapes of the Old World can only be cultivated under glass ; but in New Mexico and Cali- 
fornia they have been successfully introduced by the Spaniards, and in the latter State a great many 
varieties are now extensively cultivated, and promise to make one of the great staples of that region ; 
but eastward and northward they have entirely failed, owing to the destructive effects of that now so 
well known and dreaded insect, the Phylloxera, of which more further on. 
All the true grape-vines bear fertile flowers on one stock, and sterile flowers on another separate 
stock, and are, therefore, called polygamous, or, not quite correctly, diwcious. The sterile plants do 
- bear male flowers with abortive pistils, so that while they never produce fruit themselves, they may 
assist in fertilizing the others; the fertile flowers however, are hermaphrodites, containing both 
organs, — stamens and pistils, — and are capable of ripening fruit without the assistance of the male 
plants.2_ Real female flowers, without any stamens, do not seem ever to have been observed. Both 
forms, the male and hermaphrodite, or in other words those with sterile and those with complete flow- 
ers, are found mixed in the native localities of the wild plants, but of course, only the fertile plants 
have been selected for cultivation, and thus it happens that to the cultivator only these are known ; 
and as the grape-vine of the Old World has been in cultivation for thousands of years, it has resulted 
* This paper is an elaboration of synopses of American the pistil ; the others bear smaller stamens, shorter than the 
grape-vines by Engelmann, which appeared in Riley’s ne 
Report of the State Entomologist of Missouri, 1872, pp. 6 
62 ; The American Naturalist, 1872, vi. pp. 539-542 ; Biey’s $ 
Sixth Report, 1874, pp. 70-76 ; and the second edition of the 
Bushberg Catalogue, 1875, pp. 4-11. A French translation 
of the Bushberg Catalogue, by Bazille and Planchen (Faris 
and Montpellier, 1876) includes this paper, p. 11 et seq., with 
figures 1-18 of seeds. — Eps. 
We treat here only of the true grape-vines, with edible 
berries. In the flowers of these the small green petals do not 
expand, but cohere at the top, and separating from their base, 
eS away together as a little five-lobed hood. The flowers, 
pean (thyrsus). Thus they are distinguished from the 
false grape-vines (botanically known as Am mpelopsis and Cis- 
sus), which often resemble the true grape-vines very much, 
but bear no edible —— Their flowers expand regularly, 
arranged in broad, flat-topped clusters 
2 = fertile plants, however, are of two kinds ; some are 
perfect hermaphrodites, with long and straigh t stamens around 
pistil, which soon bend downward and curve under it ; t 
may be called imperfect hermaphrodites, approaching females, 
and they do not seem to be as eg as the perfect herma- 
phrodites, unless otherwise fert 
It is proper here, to insist on ere fact that nature has not 
produced the male plants without a definite object ; and this 
object, without any doubt, is found in the more perfect ferti- 
lization of the hermaphrodite flowers, as it is a well-established 
fact that such cross fertilization produces more abundant and 
and other diseases better than fruit grown in the ordinary way. 
I would expect such beneficial influence especially in all varie- 
ties that have short stamens, such as the Taylor. Male stocks 
can be easily obtained, either in the woods or from seeds. It 
is in course understood that the males ought to belong to the 
e species (or better to the same variety) as the gine 
slabs to be benefited by their pollen. European vin 
growers may aso profit by this suggestion. 
