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Among the species unknown in most gardens, although well worth a 
place in any park or garden where handsome plants are valued, are 
Vitis Doaniana and V. cinerea. The first is a native of the Texas 
Panhandle and in the Arboretum has proved to be a fast-growing and 
hardy plant. The leaves are large and thick, and their pale bluish 
green color gives to this plant a distinct appearance. The fruit, which 
is covered with a glaucous bloom, is arranged in small clusters. Vitis 
cinerea, which is sometimes called the Sweet Winter Grape, has large, 
nearly entire or slightly three-lobed leaves which are dark green on 
the upper surface and gray on the lower surface which, like the young 
shoots, is covered in spring with thick gray tomentum. The berries 
are small and black and destitute of bloom. When Jacques Cartier 
sailed up the Saguenay in 1535 Grape Vines covered with fruit fired his 
imagination. The plant he saw was the Frost Grape, Vitis vulpina, 
with its shiny and usually three-lobed leaves and small, juicy, acid 
blue fruits. A better acquaintance probably cooled the Frenchman’s 
enthusiasm for the wonderful fruits of the New World. Vitis vulpina 
grows further north than the other American species and is a common 
river-bank plant in the northern states as far west as the Dakotas and 
Kansas. Excellent jelly is made from the fruit. A species of the 
middle states, the Frost or Chicken Grape, Vitis cor difolia, can also be 
seen in the Arboretum. From Vitis vulpina it differs in its unlobed or 
only slightly lobed leaves and in their much smaller stipules. The small 
bluish black berries in large clusters do not ripen until after severe 
frost when they become sweet and edible. The Frost Grape is one of 
the largest and most vigorous of the American species, often growing 
to the tops of the tallest trees and forming stems from one to two feet 
in diameter. A more slender and smaller plant, Vitis palmata, with 
leaves deeply divided into long-pointed lobes and sweet black fruit is 
one of the most distinct of all the American Grape Vines. Its small 
size makes it more suitable for small gardens than the larger and 
stronger growing species. The small, distinctly gray-green leaves make 
the species of the southwestern states, Vitis arizonica, one of the in- 
teresting plants of the collection, although for the purpose for which 
Grape Vines can be best used in ornamental planting it is one of the 
the least valuable of the American species. It is not very hardy and 
requires winter protection to insure its best growth. Another interest- 
ing Grape Vine, Vitis rupestris, has little to recommend it as a garden 
plant. It grows only a few feet tall and the small shining leaves are 
abruptly pointed and coarsely toothed. The small sweet fruit in small 
compact bunches ripens in summer. This little Grape Vine is said to 
grow from southern Pennsylvania to Missouri and southward, but it is 
most abundant on the low limestone hills of western Texas. For pom- 
ologists the northern Fox Grape, Vitis labrusca, the common wild 
Grape Vine of eastern Massachusetts, is the most important for by 
selection and hybridization it has produced most of the table grapes 
which can be successfully grown in the open ground in eastern North 
America. The berries of the wild plant are thick-skinned with tough 
musky pulp. This peculiar flavor is retained in a greater or less degree 
in the cultivated varieties, and distinguishes them from the varieties of 
the European grapes which cannot be successfully grown in the open in 
eastern North America. Apart from its fruit the northern Frost Grape is 
