Dodrelabi
Gros Colman has the reputation of being the handsomest black table-grape grown. It is one of the favorite hot-house grapes in England and eastern America and is commonly grown out of doors in California. The variety is remarkable for having the largest berries of any round grape, borne in immense bunches, and for the long-keeping qualities, although the tender skins sometimes crack. The following description is compiled:
Vine vigorous, healthy and productive; wood dark brown. Leaves very large, round, thick, but slightly lobed; teeth short and blunt; glabrous above, wooly below. Bunches very large, short, well filled but rather loose; berries very large, round, dark blue; skin thick but tender; flesh firm, crisp, sweet and good; quality not of the highest. Season late and the fruits keep long.
Hartford
(Labrusca)
The vine of Hartford may be well characterized by its good qualities, but the fruit is best described by its faults, because of which the variety is passing out of cultivation. The plants are vigorous, prolific, healthy and the fruit is borne early in the season. The canes are remarkable for their stoutness and for the crooks at the joints. The bunches are not unattractive, but the quality of the fruit is low, the flesh being pulpy and the flavor insipid and foxy. The berries shell badly on the vine and when packed for shipping, so that the fruit does not ship, pack or keep well. The grapes color long before ripe, and the flowers are only partly self-fertile, so that in seasons when there is bad weather during blooming time the clusters are loose and straggling. The original vine of Hartford was a chance seedling in the garden of Paphro Steele, West Hartford, Connecticut. It fruited first in 1849.
Vine vigorous, very productive. Canes long, dark brown, covered with pubescence; nodes enlarged, flattened; internodes short; tendrils continuous, long, bifid. Leaves large, thick; upper surface dark green, dull, rugose; lower surface pale green, thinly pubescent; lobes variable; petiolar sinus deep, narrow; basal sinus usually lacking; lateral sinus shallow, narrow; teeth shallow. Flowers partly self-fertile, open in mid-season; stamens upright.
Fruit early. Clusters medium in size, long, slender, tapering, irregular, often with a long, large, single shoulder, loose; pedicel short with a few small warts; brush greenish. Berries medium in size, round-oval, black, covered with bloom, drop badly; skin thick, tough, adherent, contains much purplish-red pigment, astringent; flesh green, translucent, juicy, firm, stringy, foxy; poor in quality. Seeds free, one to four, broad, dark brown.
