VITIS CARIBABA 
V. caribaea Strong high vine, leaves orbicular-ovate, cordate or truncate 
at base, apex short, not lobed, becoming dull above, rusty—tomentose underneath; 
fruit very small. lropical America, doubtfully in the United States. 
--- Hortus Second, 1941 
Vitis caribaea, DeC. Prodr. 1, p. 634. 
Synonyms; Numerous (see Ampelideae, Planchon, p. 331) 

Plant: "Attains great size, climbing high, lives to a great age" (Dr. D 
Morris, Director Botanical Gardens, Kingston, Jamaica). 
Roots: Not examined. 
Wood: Annual, thick,angled and irregularly striated with a few shallow 
striae; growingtips not leafy and densely rusty tomentose; color dark chestnut, 
set with rusty wooly tomentum, becoming floccose, and with short, stiff pubescence 
near the nodes; outer bark separating in thin fibrous plates, and shedding second  . 
year, true bark in old vines checking fine, slowly shedding by small bits, per- 
sistent, much resembling ¥. cinerea, in body of vine, wood dense, tough, fibrous; 
sectional view of annual wood, rays numerous, thin, pores large abundant; nodes 
but little enlarged, slightly bent; diaphragm very thick, buds globose or sub- 
conical with rusty wool at the summit; tendrils once or twice forked, long stri- 
ated, rusty-wooly when young, very strong; internodes medium to long, 4" to 5" 
or more; pith nearly twice the thickness of the wood, firm, insensibly passing 
into the diaphragm. 
Leaves: Stipules minute, rusty-wooly; petiole about 4+ the length of midrib, 
slender, rusty-tomentose or pubescent, narrowly grooved above, attached to blade 
at obtuse angle; blade in length about the same as in width or slightly more, 
averaging 4" to 5"; shape orbicular, cordate or truncate at base, vlane; basal 
sinus shallow, broadly inverted V shaped or wanting, shoulders: short-acute or 
wanting; apex, short, slender, acute; margin entire, smooth; teeth mere mucrons 
near together, with slight scallop between; venation from 6 or more, commonly 7 
oairs of prominent, little rusty ribs, each of which ends directly in a mucron; 
nerves between the ribs also prominent; ugoer surface when young covered with cob» — 
webby hairs which become flocose and disappear at maturity, leaving a dull green 
finely wrinkled surface in which the ribs are sunken; lower surface covered with 
thin layer of pale rusty felt-like tomentum, more rusty along the ribs; texture 
rather leathery. 
Cluster: Fertile,- very large compound, generally lax in appearance, sim- 
ilar to V. Cinerea of Florida, but with shorter, more slender pedicels; peduncle 
medium, covered with dull rusty tomentum, rachis thinly rusty-wooly, its branches 
and their short subdivisions densely rusty—wooly;pedicels many, about 1/8". long, 
slender, smooth at flowering season; sterile,- not seen by writer, described by 
DeCandolle as exceeding the leaves in length, which would require a very large 
cluster. 
