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Vitis berlandieri (cont. ) 
leaves when young, pinkish or green, thinly covered with short, delicate hairs, 
giving an ashy appearance, becoming smooth or slightly rugose, dark glossy green 
at maturity; the under surface between the ribs, thickly set with short, delicate 
cottony hairs, when young, smooth and glossy at maturity as if varnished; color 
dark green; texture dense, leathery; leaves from ground shoots of old wood usually 
5 to 5 lobed, with rounded lateral sinuses quite similar in this respect to 
V. cinerea. 
Clusters: Medium to very large, compact, with false tendril which sometimes 
becomes a secondary cluster, or shoulder; rachis once or twice compounded, pubes- 
cent or cottony, pale green; pedicels 1/5" to a" long, slender, enlarged at 
receptacle, warty. 
Flowers: Fertile,-stamens recurved and bent laterally; ovary small, ovate, 
style slender; stigma small; staminate,-— stamens long, slender ascending. 
Berries: 1/5" to 1/3" in diameter, spherical, black or purple, sometimes 
red, little to much bloom, far more than in V. cinerea, a good distinction; skin 
thin; pulp melting, juicy, vinous, pure and sweet if allowed to hang till frost, 
- tastes much like fruit of V. cinerea. 
Seeds: 1 to 3, usually 1; small to medium, 1/8"to 1/5" long by about the 
same broad; globular or broadly ovoid when only one in a berry; color grayish- 
coffee to light chocolate brown, wine or pale-purplish; beak very small, short; 
raphe is generally invisible or a fine thread, quite as prominent in Uvalde County- 
specimens as in V. cinerea; chalaza usually flat or depressed, sometimes convex, 
ovate or roundish in center of back of seed or above, surrounded by a distinct 
groove which continues to, or over top of seed; ventral depressions commonly wide 
apart at the top, approaching a beak, broad, shallow, color light cinnamon, or 
nearly same as body of seed. 
Plantlet: Cotyledons small, ovate, green, similar to V. cinerea; petioles 
medium long, 1/6" to 4", 
The species is found along the streams among the cretaceous hills of central 
Southwestern Texas, west of Brazos River to the Rio Grande and into Mexico, and 
is also abundant on the hillsides and hilltops of the same regions. It grows 
best in strong limy soils, but will also grow well in moist sandy lands. 
--- Foundations of American Grape Culture by T. V. Munson, 1909. 


