VITACEiE. (tine FAMILT.) 77 



^3. LOBADIUM, Kaf. — Flowers pdygamo-diaciom, in clustered scaly-bracted 

 spikes like catkins, preceding the leaves : disk 5-parted, large : fruit as in ()\, but 

 Jlattish: leaves 3-foliolate. {Not poisonous.) 



6. B. aromittica, Ait. (Feagbant Sumach.) Leares pubescent 

 when young, thickish when old ; leaflets 3, rhombic-ovate, unequally cut-toothed, 

 the middle one wedge-shaped at the base; flowers pale yellow. — Dry rocky 

 soil, Vermont to Michigan, Kentucky, and westward. April. — A low strag- 

 gling bush, the crushed leaves sweet-scented. 



Order 33. VITACE^. (Vine Family.) 



Shrubs with watery juice, usually climbing by tendrils, with small regular 

 flowers, a minute truncated calyx, its limb mostly obsoletCj and the stamens as 

 many as the valvate petals and opposite them/ Berry 2-ceUed, usually 4- 

 seeded. — Petals 4-5, very deciduous, hypogynous or perigynous. Fila- 

 ments slender : anthers introrse. Pistil with a short style or none, and a 

 slightly 2-lobed stigma: ovary 2-celled, with 2 ei'ect anatropous ovules 

 from the base of each. Seeds bony, with a minute embryo at the base of 

 the hard albumen, which is grooved on one side. — Stipules deciduous. 

 Leaves palmately veined or compound : tendrils and flower-clusters oppo- 

 site the leaves. Flowers small, greenish. (Young shoots, foliage, &c. 

 acid.) — Consists of Vitis and one or two nearly allied genera. 



1. TiTIS, Toum. Grape. 



Calyx very short, usually with a nearly entu-e border or none at all, filled 

 with a fleshy disk which bears the petals and stamens. — Mowers in a com- 

 potmd thyrsus; pedicels mostly umbellate-clustered. (The classical Latin 

 name of the Vine.) 



4 1 . VITIS proper. — Petals 5, cohering at the top while they separate at the base, 

 and so the corolla usually JaUs off without expanding : 5 thick glands or lobes of the 

 disk alternating with the stamens, between them and the base of the ovary ; flowers 

 dioecious-polygamous in all the American species, exhaling a fragrance like thai of 

 Mignonette : leaves simple, rounded and heart-shaped, often variously and variably 

 hbed. 



* Leaves woolly beneath, when lobed having obtuse or rounded sinuses. 



1. "Vm Liabrusca, L. (Korthern Fox-Grape.) BrancUets and young 

 leaves very woolly ; haves continuing rusty-woolly beneath ; fertile panicles compact ; 

 berries large (^'-i' in diameter). — Moist thickets, common. June. — Berries 

 ripe in Sept., dark purple or amber-color, with a tough musky pulp. Improved 

 by cultivation, it has given rise to the Isabella Grape, &c. 



2. v. SBStivaliS, Michx. (Summer Grape.) Young leaves downy leith 

 hose cobwebby hairs beneath, smoothish when old, green above ; fertile panicles com- 

 pound, long and slender : berries small (J' or i' in diameter), black with a bloom. 

 — Thickets, common; climbing high. May, June.— Berries pleasant, ripe in 



Oct. 



7* 



