The first man to write a monograph on American grapes was Rafinesque,[119] who published in 1830 a paper bound volume entitled American Manual of the Grape Vine, etc. Rafinesque, who was long a resident of the United States, had an opportunity to acquire knowledge on the subject upon which he wrote second to none other. His description of the genus is similar to that of his predecessors and very good; but here all similarity ends and practically all value. After having made forty-one species, the greater portion of which have names given by himself, he says: “By the above enumeration of our Grapes I have done for this genus what Michaux did for our Oaks. Owing to the great confusion of former authors, and the difficulty of comparing the leaves and fruits of all the species, it is hardly as perfect as I should wish. Rigid botanists may perhaps wish to reduce this species to a minor number or consider some as hybrids: if they can find good permanent collective characters, let them reduce our Grapes and Oaks to a dozen species. But the angular or striated branches, the long or short petioles, the oval, cordate or reniform leaves, etc., must always be deemed essential specific characters, and several of my new species, such as V. bracteata, V. angulata, V. peltata, V. canina, V. blanda, V. longifolia, V. acerifolia, V. amara, V. prolifera, etc., must be deemed very distinct.” None of those of which he says “must be deemed essential specific characters” is now so considered and the species which must be “deemed very distinct” are many of them unrecognized and none of them known by the name which he gave.
Le Conte, about the middle of the last century, did much work in the botany of grapes, publishing several papers in the Proceedings of the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia. These were in the nature of monographs although they were not, so far as known, published separately. He gives twelve species generally taken from other authors.
A little later than Le Conte, Engelmann of St. Louis, gave his attention to the genus Vitis, clearing up a number of disputed points. His work was published in various reports and later in the Bushberg Catalogue and Grape Manual. Engelmann’s studies are particularly valuable in that he was the first botanist working with grapes who lived in the middle west and the territory over which he ranged in his botanical expeditions was comparatively virgin. This was about the time of the reconstitution of the French vineyards by the use of American roots as stocks on which to graft their French vines to enable them to resist phylloxera. Many thousand cuttings and rooted vines of American grapes were sent to France annually for this purpose. The value of grafting on resistant stocks had stimulated an interest among French scientists in grapes generally and particularly in the American species. While their aid in separating species was but slight, owing to their distance from the field where the plants were growing, yet the investigations of Planchon, Millardet, and others as to the comparative value of various characters in separating species, were of great importance. These investigations were utilized by Engelmann to a considerable extent. Owing to its simplicity, and somewhat perhaps to the place of publication, his work obtained favor among grape-growers to a greater extent than that of any of his predecessors. In his earlier writings he gives six species but in the last edition of the Bushberg Catalogue thirteen are enumerated.
| 1. V. bicolor 2. V. cordifolia 3. V. rotundifolia 4. V. doaniana 5. V. longii | 6. V. labrusca 7. V. rupestris 8. V. riparia 9. V. vinifera 10. V. aestivalis |
| CANES OF SPECIES OF VITIS | |
Shortly after and partly coincident with Engelmann, Munson, of Texas, made valuable contributions to our knowledge of American grapes. Munson is, what none of his predecessors had been, a cultivator of grapes and a breeder of new varieties as well as a botanical student of the subject. The region in which he lived was comparatively new to botanists, and it was partly, perhaps, on this account that he raised the number of species from the thirteen given by Engelmann to twenty-five. At the present time it appears doubtful if all of these will ultimately be given specific rank. Many of them undoubtedly will, and others of them will be recognized at least as varieties. Munson is regarded to-day as the chief authority on grapes of the semi-arid and mountainous districts of the West and is one of the leading authorities on American viticulture.
The last man who has paid special attention to the grapes of North America is Bailey, of Cornell. In his latest classification he gives twenty-three species of American grapes. Bailey is the only American botanist of experience and recognized standing in general botany who has paid special attention to the grape. His monograph of the genus Vitis which, with some changes, has appeared successively in Gray’s Synoptical Flora, The Evolution of Our Native Fruits, and the Cyclopedia of American Horticulture, is the most complete work we have on this subject. With his permission we have followed his arrangement of species in The Grapes of New York.