It is found sparingly in New York as "Winter Grape," more plentifully in New Jersey as 

 "Pigeon Grape," in both of which regions it approaches V. bicolor closely. It occurs in its purest 

 form chiefly south of the Potomac River and Cumberland Mountains of Tennessee towards the 

 Gulf, east of the Mississippi River. From Maryland to Western New York there is a gradual 

 transition to V bicolor, and a similar transition takes place between Middle Tennessee and 

 Michigan and Wisconsin. It grows naturally on high, sandy loamy, or sandy clay soils. 



Though generally supposed to enter into the Eumelan, Delaware and the "Southern iEsti- 

 valis," group of varieties (V Bourquinia, Munson), I am unable to trace it into any of these and 

 find its markings in cultivated species only in Norton Virginia, though in hybrid state in this 

 or its seedlings or hybrids, possessing traces of V. labrusca and V. cinerea, etc. Cynthiana gives 

 not the slightest evidence, in any botanical point, of being other than a synonym of Norton 

 Virginia. That Cynthiana came from the woods of Arkansas near the Red River, as held by 

 some, is most improbable, in the light of botanical analysis which reveals only V. Lincecumii, 

 of the ^stivalian series in those regions, never the true V. cBstivalis to which Cynthiana belongs. 

 Eumelan and all its pure seedlings show only V labrusca and V. vinifera. Delaware shows 

 V labrusca and a form very much like V Bourquiniana, Southern Europe, allied to V. cestivalis 

 and V. vinifera; its analysis is very puzzling. The large number of synonyms of V. cestivalis clearly 

 shows how variable it is as a species. Many minor varieties of it exist, even after separating from 

 it V. bicolor (Leconte), and V. Simpsoni (Munson), which are, along with V. Lincecumii 

 (Buckley) , included in it by most writers. This division of the old species appears to me to be 

 fully demanded and justified, in order to be at all consistent, in view of other species admitted 

 by all botanists and more especially so in a viticultural point of view. Thus the aspect of 

 V. bicolor could never be mistaken for V. Simpsoni. The former can readily endure 30 degrees 

 to 40 degrees below zero, while the latter can hardly endure zero. The former is almost entirely 

 resistant to the Leaf-Folder while the latter is nearly always defoliated late in the summer. 

 There are excellent distinctive botanical characters, which any botanist would observe at once 

 in plants of these different forms when growing side by side. 



V. astivalis possesses properties that render its better varieties very valuable in the regions 

 where fungus diseases prevail, on account of its great resistance to such diseases, and its high 

 per cent of sugar. Its wild varieties, such as the Norton Virginia, make a fine wine, and furnish 

 excellent material to use in hybridization, to impart health, and fine wine properties, and in com- 

 bination with large berried kinds to give good commercial kinds, for the moister parts of the 

 South. V 



9. VITIS SIMPSONI, Munson. (See Plate XVI.) 



Plant: Slender, rampant grower, climbing very high, much branched, little tapering; tips 

 of growing brancher. rusty tomentose and extended far beyond the fully developed leaves, 

 appearing very naked of leaves, and pendulous. 



Roots: Non-fibrous, thickening downward from collar in one year seedlings, for a foot or 

 more, rather fleshy, yet resistant to Phylloxera; deeply penetrating. 



Wood : Cylindrical, rusty tomentose in growing tip, becoming paler, ash-colored with age, till 

 the wool becomes flocculent and shedding after first season, leaving the finely, regularly striated 

 mature wood of a very dark dull reddish-brown, without prunose bloom or spinous pubescence in 

 any known example, softer with longer internodes than in other species of this series ; nodes 

 little enlarged; diaphragm 3/16' to 1/4' or more thick, biconcave; bud small, sub-conical, acute, 

 covered with reddish-brown scales, and tipped with rusty wool, medium in expanding, densely 

 brown rusty, tip open, crimson; tendrils intermittent, mostly bifid, sometimes trifid, long, slender, 

 red when young, woolly dark brown with age; internodes long, 4' to 7' or more in vigorous shoots ; 

 pith medium enlarged at lower end, light brown. 



—SO— 



