Chap. 4.] 
TAIIIETIES or THE TINE. 
223 
account of the body and durability of its wine, which improves 
with old age. There are five varieties of the Aminean grape ; 
of these, the smaller germana, or sister'- grape, has a smaller 
berry than the rest, and flowers more strongly, being able to 
bear up against rain and tempestuous weather ; a thing that 
is not the case with the larger germana, though it is less ex- 
posed to danger when attached to a tree than when supported 
only by a trellis. Another kind, again, has obtained the 
name of the gemella," or twin" grape, because the clusters 
always grow*° in couples : the flavour of the wine is extremely 
rough, but it is remarkable for its strength. Of these several 
varieties the smaller one suff'ers from the south wind, but re- 
ceives nutriment from all the others, upon Mount Yesuvius, 
for instance, and the hills of Surrentum : in the other parts of 
Italy it is never grown except attached to trees. The fifth 
kind is that known as the lanata, or woolly" grape ; so that 
we need not be surprised at the wool-bearing trees of the 
Seres or the Indians, for this grape is covered with a woolly 
down of remarkable thickness. It is the first of the Ami- 
nean vines that ripens, but the grape decays with remarkable 
rapidity. 
The second rank belongs to the vines of Nomentum,^^ the 
wood of which is red, from which circumstance the vines have 
received from some the name of rubellae." The grapes of 
this vine produce less wine than usual, in consequence of the 
extraordinary quantity of husk and lees they throw off : but 
the vine is remarkably strong, is well able to stand the frost, 
and is apt to receive more detriment from drought than from 
rain, from heat than from cold ; hence it is that those are 
looked upon as the best that are grown in cold and moist 
localities. That variety which has the smallest grape is con- 
veyed by a Thessalian tribe to Italy, where it was grown at Aminea, a 
village in the Falernian district of Campania. It is supposed to have 
been the same as the gros plant of the French. The varieties mentioned 
by Pliny seem not to have been recognized by the moderns. 
Fee does not give credit to this statement. 
In allusion to the cotton-tree, or else the mulberry leaves covered 
with the cocoons of the silkworm. See B. vi. c. 20, and B. xii. c. 21. 
Virgil, in the Georgics, has the well-known line : 
" Yelleraque ut foliis depectant tennia Seres." 
*2 See B. iii. c. 9, There are many vines, the wood of which is red, 
but this species has not been identilicd. 
