Cluster: Fertile, — very small, seldom shouldered, peduncle short; rachis smooth, of a pale 

 yellowish-green; pedicels short 1/8', slender, thickened toward receptacle which is medium; 

 staminate cluster much larger with numerous flowers, and generally shouldered. 



Flowers: Fertile, — stamens recurved and bent laterally, rarely ascending; pollen of fertile 

 flowers non-virile hence pistillate plants will not often bear alone; ovary globose, style short, 

 slender, stigma medium; staminate, — stamens ascending, anthers large, bearing abundant virile 

 pollen. 



Berries: 1/4' to 1/2' in diameter, round or flattened a little from stem to apex and often 

 somewhat doubled, like two berries coalesced; black with little bloom; skin very thin and tender- 

 pulp tender and melting; quality pure; coloring matter excessive, dark crimson or violet, a part 

 of which clings closely to the seed. 



Seeds: 3 to 4, small, 8' to 3/16' long, by nearly as broad; color light chocolate, beak rather 

 smaller and more defined than in V. vulpina, acute, raphe slender, thread-like, extending over 

 the littte, or not at all notched top of seed, continuing with little elevation to chalaza which is small, 

 in center of back of seed, appearing as terminus of raphe, slightly enlarged and little elevated, lying 

 in a very shallow, narrowly elliptical basin, ventral depressions short, shallow, of lighter color 

 than body of seed. 



Plantlet: Cotyledons small, acute-ovp,te, cordate and crimson at first. 



Viticultural Observations and Remarks 



Germination quick, nearly with V. Longii; foliation just after V. Longii, fruit ripens early, 

 with or before V. Longii and earliest with V. vulpina, producing many clusters of very light 

 weight. This species has the faculty of bearing fruit upon young shoots pushed out upon two, 

 three or four year old wood, in case the last year's growth has been destroyed during the winter. 



Seedlings little less vigorous than V. Longii. Vigor and hardiness in all sandy and alluvial 

 lands very great, where there is permanent moisture a few feet below; endures climatic changes 

 very well when permanent moisture exists within a few feet of the surface, but in sandy soil which 

 dries out in long drouths in great depth i": soon perishes. Of one hundred vines well established 

 and very vigorous in such soils in the writer's grounds to the fourth year, passed through a severe 

 drouth and by the sixth year were ,all dead, evidently from incapacity to resist great drouth, 

 while most other native species under same condition alongside of them are, twenty years later, 

 very vigorous and growing luxuriantly. Foliage well^ adapted to resist fungus and insect 

 attacks, which it escapes quite well, excepting the speckled form of anthracnose which attacks 

 it very much but with no serious damage. It resists black rot perfectly. Propagates easily 

 from cuttings. Pollen of staminate plants very prepotent in fertilizing and hybridizing with 

 other species. 



This species is found naturally hybridized in Southwestern Missouri with V. vulpina, 

 V. cordifolia and more rarely with V. cinerea and V. Lincecumii (H. Jaeger) ; in Texas with 

 V. candicans, V. monticola, V. B'erlandieri, and V. Arizonica, — the latter toward the Rio 

 Grande. The writer has a number of remarkable hybrids of it with V. vulpina, V. Longii, 

 V. Lincecumii, V. labrusca, etc.; Huntington seems to be a hybrid of V. rupestris with the 

 Clinton, and has a fruit which makes a good wine and resists black rot, though attacked by 

 anthracnose. One of writer's seedlings of H. Jaeger's No. 70 is about the size of Ives 

 Seedling, in berry and cluster, earlier, vigorous, prolific and much superior in quality. It is 

 named America, see its description in Chapter III. 



In its pure form, this species is native in sandy gulches, at head of ravines, on high land, 

 on sand hills along streams, in Central Tennessee, Southwestern Missouri, Northern Arkansas, 

 along the Ozark ridges of Oklahoma, then skips quite a wide region in Northwestern Texas 

 (Longii taking its place there). Then occurs abundantly again in Central and Southwestern 



—103— 



