Vitis and Labrusca 



the tier above it. Otherwise, the whipping of the 

 branch and the vine-shoots in the wind would damage 

 the hanging blossoms or fruit. 



To keep out beasts, especially the mischievous 

 goat, it was necessary to enclose the vineyard with a 

 hedge {ib. 371) of ' paliurus,' or some other thorny 

 shrub, and the soil had to be kept open by deep and 

 frequent hoeing {ib. 399 sq.). In fact, as Virgil says, 

 to the work there is no end. 



The wide cultivation and the great value of the vine 

 gave rise to a technical vocabulary for its various 

 parts. As with other trees, the name for the main 

 stem was ' truncus.' The rods left on the tree after 

 pruning were ' palmites,' and the eyes or buds on 

 them ' gemmae,' or sometimes ' oculi.' Thus Virgil's 

 sign of spring is accurately expressed, ' laeto t urgent 

 in palmite gemmae ' (Ec. vii. 48). The shoots which 

 spring from the eyes were 'pampini.' These are 

 longest in autumn before the general pruning, hence 

 ' pampineo autumno ' {Ge. ii. 5). The summer 

 pruning, in which superfluous ' pampini ' were re- 

 moved, was ' pampinatio,' and 'putatio' is also found 

 in this sense, especially in poetry, though it is more 

 properly applied either to the general removal of the 

 ' pampini ' in winter, or to the pruning of the sup- 

 porting elm or other tree. Lexicons have a way 

 of rendering both ' palmes ' and ' pampinus ' by 

 ' tendril.' This is absurd, for tendrils do not produce 

 buds, nor are they, as tendrils, pruned off, but only 

 as growing on a 'pampinus.' Technically, 'racemus' 

 is the stalk of the bunch of grapes, ' uva,' but is 



141 



