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The True* Grape-vines of the United States. 



15 V DR. G. ENGELMANN. 



The Grape-vines are among the most varia- 

 ble plants, even in their wild state, in which 

 climate, soil, shade, humidity, and perhaps 

 natural hybridization, have originated such a 

 multiplicity and such an intermixture of forms, 

 that it is often difficult to recognize the original 

 types and to refer the different given forms to 

 their proper alliances. Only by carefully study- 

 ing a large number of forms from all parts of 

 the country, in their peculiar mode of growth 

 and especially their fructification, or rather 

 their seeds, are we enabled to arrive at any 

 thing like a satisfactory disposition of these 

 plants. (Table of Grape Seeds; fig. 1-33, page 13.) 



Before I proceed to the classification of our 

 Grape-vines, I deem it necessary to make a 

 few preliminary remarks : 



The grape-vines cultivated in that part of 

 the United States lying east of the Rocky 

 Mountains are all natives of the country, most 

 of them picked up in the woods ; some, per- 

 haps, improved by cultivation ; and a few the 

 product of natural or artificial hybridization. 

 In that part of the country the wine grapes of 

 the Old World can only be cultivated under 

 glass ; but in New Mexico and California they 

 have been successfully introduced by the Span- 

 iards, and in the latter State a great many va- 

 rieties are now extensively cultivated, and 

 promise to make one of the great staples of 

 that region ; but eastward and northward they 

 have entirely failed, owing t^ the destructive 

 effects of that now so well known and dreaded 

 insect, the Phylloxera, of which more, further on. 



All the true Grape-vines bear fertile flowers 

 on one stock, and sterile flowers on another 

 separate stock, and are, therefore, called poly- 

 gamous, or, not quite correctly, dioecious. The 

 sterile plants do bear male flowers with abor- 

 tive pistils, so that while they never produce 

 fruit themselves, they may assist in fertilizing 

 the others ; the fertile flowers however, are 

 hermaphrodites, containing both organs — sta- 

 mens and pistils — and are capable of ripening 

 fruit without the assistance of the male plants. f 

 Real female flowers, without any stamens, do 

 not seem ever to have been observed Both 



* We treat here only of the true grape-vines, with edi- 

 ble berries. In the flowers of these the small green pet- 

 als do not expand, but cohere at the top, and separating 

 from their base, fall away together as a little five-lobed 

 hood. The flowers, and consequently the fruit, are ar- 

 ranged in the well-known clusters (thyrsus). Thus they 

 are distinguished fromthe/a/se grape-vines (botanically 

 known as Ampelopsis and Cissus), which often resemble 

 the true grape-vines very much, but bear no edible ber- 

 ries. Their flowers expand regularly, opening at top, 

 and are arranged in broad, flat-topped clusters 

 f corymbs). 



t These fertile plants, however, are of two kinds ; some 

 are perfect hermaphrodites, with long and straight sta- 



3 — 



forms, the male and hermaphrodite, or if pre- 

 ferred, those with sterile and those with com- 

 plete flowers, are found mixed in the^ native 

 localities of the wild plants/, but of course, 

 only the fertile plants have been selected for 

 cultivation, and thus it happens that to the 

 cultivator only these are known ; and as the 

 Grape-vine of the Old World has been in cul- 

 tivation for thousands of years, it has resulted 

 that this hermaphrodite character of its flow- 

 ers has been mistaken for a botanical peculiar- 

 ity, by which it was to be distinguished, not 

 only from our American Grape-vines, but also 

 from the wild grapes of the Old World. But 

 plants raised from the seeds of this, as well as 

 of any other true Grape-vine, generally furnish 

 as many sterile as fertile specimens, while 

 those propagated by layering or by cuttings, 

 of course, only continue the individual charac- 

 ter of the mother-plant or stock.* 



The peculiar disposition of the tendrils in 

 the Grape-vines furnishes an important char- 

 acteristic for the distinction of one of our most 

 commonly cultivated species, Vitis labrusca, 

 its wild and its cultivated varieties, from all 

 others. In this species — and it is the only true 

 Vitis exhibiting it — the tendrils (or their equiv- 

 alent, an inflorescence), are found opposite each 

 leaf, and this arrangement I designate as con- 

 tinuous tendrils. All the other species known 

 to me exhibit a regular alternation of two 

 leaves, each having a tendril opposite it, with 

 a third leaf without such a tendril, and this 

 arrangement may be named intermittent ten- 

 drils. Like all vegetable characters, this is 

 not an absolute one ; to observe it well it is 

 necessary to examine well-grown canes, and 

 neither sprouts of extraordinary vigor, nor 



mens around the pistil; the others bear smaller stamens, 

 shorter than the pistil, which soon bend downward and 

 curve under it; these may be called imperfect hermaphro- 

 dites, approaching females, and they do not seem to be 

 as fruitful as the perfect hermaphrodites, unless other- 

 wise fertilized. 



It is proper here, to insist on the fact that nature has 

 not produced the male plants without a definite object; 

 and this object, without any doubt, is found in the more 

 perfect fertilization of the hermaphrodite flowers, as it 

 is a well established fact that such cross fertilization 

 produces more abundant and healthier fruit. Vine 

 growers might take a hint from these observations, and 

 plant a few male stocks in their vineyards, say 1 to 40 or 

 50 of their fertile stocks, and might expect from such a 

 course healthier fruit, which would probably resist rot 

 and other diseases better than fruit grown iii the ordi- 

 nary way. I would expect such beneficial influence es- 

 pecially in all varieties that have short stamens, such as 

 the Taylor. Male stocks can be easily obtained, either 

 in the woods or from seeds. It is of course understood 

 that the males ought to belong to the same species (or 

 better, to the same variety) as the fertile plants to be 

 benefitted by their pollen. European vine growers may 

 also profit by this suggestion. 



* Some observations (rather loose, to be sure) seem to 

 point to the possibility of the sexual characters of the 

 grape-vines becoming changed under certain circum- 

 stances ; and, though I have not seen a case of this kind 

 myself, nor heard of an instance where fertile vines in 

 cultivation began to bear sterile (male) flowers, there is 

 no absolute impossibility in it, as we know that other 

 plants (willows for example) occasionally sport in this 

 manner. 



