Cluster; Fertile, small to medium, 2' to 4' or more long, small shoulder, generally with short 

 peduncle; rachis simple, thinly cottony; pedicels 1/8' to 1/4' long, enlarged at top, more or less 

 warty. Sterile, much larger, compound. 



Flowers : Fertile, — stamens generally short, recurved and bent laterally, but ascending or 

 erect in most cultivated varieties, as in Ives, Perkins, Hartford, Concord, and then readily self- 

 fertilizing; ovary small, ovate; style slender, stigma small. Sterile — stamens long, erect, 

 commence blooming a few days earlier than the fertile. 



Berries: Medium to very large, 1/2' to 1' in diameter, spherical, or oblate, color generally 

 dull black, with little or no prunose bloom in purest forms, rarely red or greenish-white in nature, 

 often so produced by cultivation, especially among Concord seedlings, drops readily when ripe, 

 or little persistent; skin generally thick and tough, becoming tender in cultivation, often, in 

 wild varieties, pungent, similar to V. candicans, and always possesses a musky odor and flavor, 

 known as "foxy;" pulp tough, slippery, acid. 



Seeds: 2 to 4, medium to large, 1/5' to 1/4' long by 1/4' to 1/6' broad, obcordate, notched 

 at top, color pale purplish or dirty brown at first, darkens with age; beak short, thick, generally 

 well defined ; raphe invisible in groove till near its passage over top of seed, then small and slightly 

 elevated to base of beak; chalaza circular, depressed in center, sometimes almost obsolete or 

 merely a crescent-shaped rim on lower edge, seeming like a basin in center of back of seed ; groove 

 from beak to chalaza on outer face small, shallow around chalaza, broad and distinct above, 

 running over top of seed, ceasing at commencement of inner ridge; depressions diverging from 

 the beak, broad, distinct, of a lighter yellowish-brown color than body of seed. 



Plantlet: Cotyledons (seed-leaves), petiole short, 1/16' to 1/12'; blade medium, ovate, acute, 

 dark green ; plumule and caulicle light green. 



Viticultural Observations and Remarks 



Germination earlier than. in V. cBstivalis, slower than V. cordifolia; foliation medium slow; 

 inflorescence early to medium; earliest, such as Ives, soon after V. vulpina and continuing much 

 later in such as Martha; at Denison, Texas, blooms generally from the 1st to 12th of May; ripening 

 of fruit very early to medium season. 



Growth of plants first year feeble, vigorous when established, in well-drained, alluvial sandy 

 soils ; its native vines of New England States endure cold well, but great heat and drouth poorly ; 

 little resistant to Phylloxera ; Downy Mildew does not affect it much nor does Black Rot often 

 attack its pure native forms, though severe in Concord and its seedlings generally, and very 

 destructive to nearly all hybrids of it with V. vinifera. It grows easily from cuttings, though 

 varieties vary much in this respect. 



Natural hybrids of it with V. vulpina, as in Clinton, Sherman, Taylor, etc., with V. cestivalis in 

 a very slight degree in Norton Virginia and others and with V. cordifolia, have been found. Of 

 varieties introduced to cultivation, Isabella and Catawba, and their numerous seedlings, though 

 (jenerally classed as pure V. labrusca, undoubtedly possess blood of V. vinifera, but we can name 

 Champion, Venango, Ives, Perkins, Dracut Amber, Lutie (an exceedingly foxy, red variety, from 

 Tennessee) , and numerous others of the purest type. Some, reported as pure by their originators, 

 give strong evidence of being mixed with V. vinifera; such are lona, Cassady, Niagara, Jefferson, 

 Diana, and a number of others. The Concord, though chiefly of Labrusca blood, clearly shows 

 in itself and many of its seedlings a trace of V. vulpina, and it is to that cause, probably, they 

 owe their better quality. 



. The continuous tendrils, prickles on annual wood, densely rusty felted lower surface of leaves, 

 musky fruit, sunken chalaza and shallow, fibrous roots are characteristics which easily separate 

 it from other species; otherwise, it stands more nearly allied to V. Lincecumii, V.coriacea and 

 V. candicans, than any other species, hence I place it in a separate series in conformity with 

 Planchon. 



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