424 THE TRUE GRAPE-VINES OF THE UNITED STATES. 
found in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado and New Mexico, and perhaps in Southern Utah. It is the earliest flower- 
ing species about St. Louis, accurding to season, between April 25th and May 15th, and matures earlier than any other. 
In St. Louis it used to be brought to market, before we had cultivated aii sometimes as early as July Ist, from the 
rocky, sun-exposed banks of the river below town, and was, indeed, known as the June grape. From that time on 
ripe fruit is found, according to locality, through August and Septem ne er. It is singular that our vintners, as far as I 
ean learn, have never made wine from this species, nor tried to cultivate and improve it. The berries probably seem 
too small, and they may have expected better results from the larger fruits of 4stivalis ; but the experiment might yet 
be made, and our woods mesa be examined for larger-fruited varieties, which really do occur, e. g., along the Lakes 
and on sit near Detroit, ete. 
as been stated ioe this species has been confounded with Vitis cordifolia, to which indeed it bears a cer- 
tain sedate ; but the characters enumerated, especially those of the diaphragms, the stipules, the form of the leaf 
and its base, its flowering time, and above all the seeds, distinguish them as well as any two species can be distinguished, 
even if the difficulty of one and the readiness of the other to grow from cuttings be not taken into account. 
12. Viris RUPESTRIS, Scheele, mostly a low, bushy plant, often without any, or with weak, deciduous tendrils, 
and not climbing, under favorable circumstances becoming stouter and climbing pretty high ; branchlets rounded, 
diaphragm thicker than in Riparia, but thinner than in other species ; leaves rather small (about 3 inches wide), 
broadly cordate, rarely very slightly lobed, mostly broader than long, usually somewhat folded together, with broad, 
coarse teeth, and commonly with an abruptly elongated point, glabrous, shining, of a very pale green color ; stipules 
almost as large as in last species, 2-24 lines long, thin ; berries small or middle sized, sweet, and in very small bunches ; 
seeds obtuse, with a slender or almost invisible rha 
his grape-vine, of very peculiar aspect, is a native of the hilly country west of the Mississippi eh from the 
banks of the Missouri to Texas, and is also found on the Cumberland River near Nashville ; its favor 
localities are gravelly banks or bars of mountain streams, overflowed in spring, more rarely (in Texas) on Bhs (13)] 
rocky plains. In Missouri it is called Sand grape, in Texas often, on account of te ements fruit, Sugar 
with us it flowers soon after Riparia and ripens in August, and is said to make a good wit In France the v. rupestris 
is used, like the last species, as a grafting stock for French vines; it grows easily re niles and is said to make 
vigorous plants, perfectly resistant to the insect. 
VITIS VINIFERA, Linn. Here would be the place to introduce the grape-vine of the Old World, as it is most 
“ibe allied to the last-enumerated species, especially to V. riparia. Though many of its cultivated varieties bear 
as large, or even larger, than those of any of our American grape-vines, other cultivated forms, and especially 
the ‘a wine-grapes, those from which the best wines are Seay and also the wild or naturalized ones, have fruit 
not much larger than that of the above named native spec 
This plant, together with the wheat, belongs to sae earliest acquisitions of cultivation, the history of which 
mfaches beyond the most ancient written records. Not only have the sepulchres of the mummies of ancient Egypt 
preserved us ° _ fruit (large sized berries) ne seed, but its seeds have even been discovered in the lacustrine habita- 
tions of Northern Italy. It is a mooted question where to look for the native country of this eee and whether or 
not we owe the different varieties of our present Vinifera to one or to several countries, and to one or to several 
original wild species, which, by cultivation through uncounted ages, and by accidental and eet hybridization, 
may have produced the numberless forms now known. These rarely us forcibly of the numerous forms of our dog, 
which we cannot trace, either, but which can scarcely be derived from a single (supposed) original wild species. 
Director Regel, of St. Petersburg, ascribes them to the intermingling of a few species, well known in their wild state 
at this day. The late Prof. Braun, of Berlin, suggested that they are the offspring of distinct species yet found wild 
in many parts of Southern Europe and Asia, which thus he considered not the accidental offspring of the cultivated 
plants, as is generally believed, but the original parent stock. I may add, from my own investigations, that the 
grape-vine which inhabits the native forests of the low banks of the Danube, — “ bottom-woods,” as we would call 
them, —from Vienna down into Hungary, well represents our V. cordifolia, with its stems 3, 6, and 9 inches 
thick, and climbing on the highest trees, its smooth and shining, scarcely lobed leaves, and its small, black berries. 
On the other hand, the wild grape of the thickets of the hilly countries of Tuscany and Rome, with its lower growth, 
somewhat cottony leaves, and larger and more palatable fruit, which “don’t make a bad wine,” as an Italian botanist 
expressed himself to me, reminds us, notwithstanding the smaller size of the leaves, of the downy forms of Riparia, or 
a corruption of ‘‘Long’s,” and the plant comes his the and it is reported that Long’s is still growing in the late Mr. 
Upper Arkansas River, where Major Long, on his return from Bronner’s garden at Wisloch, near Heidelberg, and that it is 
his expedition to the Rocky Mountains, found, as se reports, i : i 
Seed. 
and the plant raised as ‘*Long’s.” A manuscript of the 
vitieulturist Bronner, preserved in the Carlsruhe li library, 
speaks of a certain grape-vine as “ Long’s, from Arkansas,” 
