THE TRUE GRAPE-VINES OF THE UNITED STATES. 425 
perhaps of some 4stivalis. It was known to the ancients as Labrusca, a name improperly applied by science to an 
American species, and is called by the natives to this day Brusca. The grape-vines of the countries south of the 
Caucasus Mountains, the ancient Colchis, the reputed original home of these plants, greatly resemble the Italian plant 
just described. 
1e European grape-vine is characterized by smoothish, and, when young, shining more or less deeply 5, or 
even 7-lobed leaves ; lobes pointed and sharply toothed ; seeds mostly notched at the upper end; beak elongated ; 
rhaphe indistinct ; chalaza broad, high up the seed. In some varieties the leaves and branchlets are hairy and even 
downy when young; the seeds vary considerably in thickness and length, less so in the shape of the rhaphe. It is well 
known that the plant grows readily from cuttings, and that it easily and almost invariably succumbs to the attacks of 
the phylloxera, which, accidentally introduced into France, probably with American vines, has done such immense 
damage in that country and in the rest of Europe, probably since 1863 (though only discovered as the virulent enemy 
in 1868), and is spreading more and more. In California, where thus far the Vinifera has been successfully cultivated, 
the insect also begins to make its appearance in some localities. That it was the cause of the complete failure in all 
the efforts to plant the European vine east of the Rocky Mountains, is now well known. 
13. Vitis vuLpina, Linn. (known also as V. rotundifolia, Michx.), the Southern Fox-grape, Bullace or Bullit 
grape, or Muscadine of the Southern States, is entirely different from all our other grape-vines, and is mentioned here 
only to complete the list of our species. It is too tender for our climate, and never flowers or fruits here. It is found 
in damp thickets or on mountain slopes, sometimes a low bush, and again climbing very high, with entire, never 
forked, tendrils; branchlets without any diaphragm (see fig. 37); leaves small (2, or at most, 3 inches wide), 
rounded, heart-shaped, firm and glossy, dark green, smooth, or rarely slightly hairy beneath, with coarse and large 
or broad and bluntish teeth. The bunches are very small, of few very large berries, which fall off singly, like plums, 
The peculiar seed has been figured and described above (page 13, fig. 33). In the South some of the varieties are 
highly esteemed, especially the White Scuppernong. 
HYBRIDITY. 
Plants so intimately related among themselves as these, are apt to hybridize, and their off- 
spring is usually fertile, not, like many hybrid animals (the mule) or plants, incapable to propagate. 
We have a number of artificial hybrids among grape-vines, whose history is well known, and which 
bear as well as the true species, and their seeds are fertile. But we also find other vines in the 
woods or in vineyards, which, from their characters, we must conclude to be spontaneous hybrids, 
There is, of course, a good deal of experience and judgment necessary to decide what may 
be justly claimed to be a hybrid, and what only a variety within the limits of some va- [20 (14) ] 
riable species, and the opinions of different persons may honestly vary on these points. 
But whoever has studied the great variability of many plants will hesitate long before he calls to his 
aid the often fanciful help of hybridity in the explanation of doubtful forms. Where species are so 
well marked as e. ¢., Labrusca is, it is not difficult to recognize some of its characters in a hybrid 
offspring, though the general looks of the questionable plant otherwise may not conform to our idea 
of Labrusca at all; but in other cases, where species already stand near one another, the matter 
becomes much more difficult. But there is another way, unfortunately a very tedious one, to assist 
in such investigations, viz.: to sow the seeds of hybrids and study their offspring; for it isa fact 
that seedlings of hybrids are apt to revert to, or at least to approach to, one or the other of the 
parents. One of the most striking examples of both positions here taken is furnished by the well- 
known Taylor or Bullit grape. The vigorous growth of this form, its thin diaphragms, its glossy, 
glabrous foliage, its small clusters of rather small berries entirely destitute of foxy taste, all seem to 
point to it as a cultivated variety of Riparia; but when we come to examine the tendrils we find 
that they are irregular ; sometimes intermittent, sometimes more or less continuous a have ee = 
in succession, which can only point to Labrusca), and just so the seeds differ from Riparia s sats 
their great size and their form (see page 13, fig. 3). Now it so happens that Taylor seeds have 
planted by the million in Europe, in order to raise resistant stock for grafting, and the gene : 
experience is that one cannot find two seedlings in a hundred alike, and similar to the mother-plant 5 
Some approach the Riparia type, and others show the Labrusca parentage distinctly. Thus, to give 
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