(Vinifera)
This is the leading shipping grape of the Pacific slope where it is everywhere grown under the name "Tokay," with several modifying terms, as "Flame," "Flame-colored" and "Flaming." The fruit is not especially high in quality nor attractive in appearance, but it ships and keeps well, qualities making it popular in commercial vineyards. The description is compiled.
Vine very vigorous, luxuriant in growth of canes, shoots and leaves; very productive; wood dark brown, straight with long joints. Leaves dark green with a brown tinge; lightly lobed. Bunches very large, sometimes weighing eight or nine pounds, moderately compact; shouldered. Berries large, oblong, red when mature, covered with lilac bloom; flesh firm, crisp, sweet; quality good. Season late, keeps and ships well.
Flowers
(Rotundifolia)
Flowers is a late, dark-colored Rotundifolia very popular in the Carolinas. The variety is noted for its vigorous and productive vines, its large fruit-clusters and grapes that cling in the cluster unusually well for a variety of this species. The crop ripens in North Carolina in October and November. The fruit is valuable only for wine and grape-juice, having little to recommend it for dessert purposes. Flowers was found in a swamp near Lamberton, North Carolina, more than a hundred years ago by William Flowers. Improved Flowers, probably a seedling of Flowers, was found near Whiteville, North Carolina, about 1869. It differs from its supposed parent in having a more vigorous and productive vine and larger clusters, the berries of which cling even more tenaciously.
Vine vigorous, healthy, upright, open, very productive. Canes long, slender, numerous. Leaves variable but average medium in size, longer than broad, pointed, cordate, thick, dark green, smooth, leathery; margins sharply serrate; flowers perfect.
Fruit very late, keeps well. Clusters, large, consisting of ten to twenty-five berries. Berries large, round-oblong, purple or purplish-black, clinging well to the cluster-stem; skin thick, tough, faintly marked with dots; pulp white, lacking in juice, hard, sweetish, austere in flavor; poor for a table-grape but excellent for grape-juice.
Gaertner
(Vinifera, Labrusca)