INDIGENOUS VINES OF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.

MOST BOTANICAL AUTHORS HAVE ASSUMED that all the vines of Europe are derived from one particular species, the Vitis vinifera, which they imagine to be a native of Asia, and to have been imported into the Western world in prehistoric times. The primary grounds for this surmise were perhaps the Semitic traditions of Paradise, and the Greek mythos of the migration from India to Hellas of the wine-god Dionysos. From Greece the vine was supposed to have come to Italy, and from this latter country to have been imported into France and Germany by the agency of historical colonization. Whenever a German botanist met with a wild vine in the Rhine valley, he explained its existence by the assumption that it was a degenerated offspring of vines carried thither by the Romans ; and, inversely, enthusiastic antiquarians declared the presence of these plants in the marshes of the Rhine valley as relics, nay, even as evidence of the former existence of Roman settlements. This opinion obtained almost universal credence, until Gmelin, in elaborating the “ Flora Badensis, “ observed that the wild vine frequently occurred in the dioic state. He then described such plants botanically, and gave them a separate place in his treatise under the special name of Vitis sylvestris. In most botanical works which appeared subsequently to Gmelin, the Vitis sylvestris is quoted after him, but the discovery is mostly neutralized by the remark that the Vitis sylvestris was nothing but a degenerated Vitis vinifera. Other botanists, amongst them Reichenbach, fell into the error of confounding the American vine, the Vitis labrusca,—the first variety which Linné accepted by the side of the vinifera,—with the sylvestris. This singular failure of able botanists is the more astonishing, since Crescentius, who lived in the thirteenth century at Bologna, and wrote a compendium on the Italian vines, stated that he had met with many varieties of wild vine in Italy, which appeared to him to be peculiar sorts ; and Clémente, in his work on the vines of Andalusia, recognized the peculiar character of the wild vines of his country, and believed them to be indigenous to it, and consequently to have existed there previous to the introduction or origination of the cultivated species. He expresses himself very strongly against the limitation of botanists who assume only one Vitis vinifera, and refer all other varieties to a play of nature. He says that in the neighbourhood of Algaida, near Sanlucar de Barrameda, there grow in the wild state different kinds of vines which are perfectly characterized. He refers to their varying ages, and points out that the young plants have the same characters as the old ones. From this he further argues that they have probably preserved these same characters through an inconceivable series of centuries during which countless generations have been propagated by seed. He describes how, in the lower parts of the district, where there are sources of sweet water not far from the surface of the earth, the wild vine forms impenetrable thickets, grottoes, covered walks, winding footpaths, walls, arches, pillars, and by means of other plants, particularly trees, other original shapes, which it is impossible to describe. He states that it cannot be proved by any document that a vine has ever been planted in this neighbourhood in former times. What he says about the improbability of the Arabs having brought the vine thither is perhaps irrelevant, as he bases his argument upon the fact of wine having been forbidden to them by their religion. They might have cultivated it for the sake of the grapes and raisins. But the strongest argument in favour of his opinion is the small resemblance which these wild species of Algaida vines have to the cultivated varieties of the south of Spain. He thereby eliminates the idea that the first seed of these plants had been carried to these marshes from neighbouring vineyards, within a period not far distant from the time when he (Clémente) wrote, by the agency of men, or animals, or other means.

In Provence, Languedoc, and Guyenne there grow many wild vines on hedges, in jungles, or in woods and forests. According to Duhamel, they differ from the cultivated varieties by their leaves being in general smaller, and more cottony on the surface, and particularly by their fruit being much smaller, and of a less soft and sugary taste. These wild vines, to which the ancients had given the name of “ labrusca,” are yet known in the present day in the south of France, under the name of “Lambrusco” and “Lambresquiero.”

In the forests which border the marshy shores of the Rhine, between Mannheim and Rastadt, there grow many thousands of wild vines, which, as far as they had been observed at all, were, like the Vitis sylvestris of Gmelin, declared by botanists to be degenerated vines disseminated from human plantations, through the agency of birds and men. This error was dispelled by the investigations of that distinguished oenologist, the late J. P. Bronner, of Wiesloch, near Heidelberg. He studied these children of the forest in their natural haunts during several years ; he visited them in early summertime, and selected from the many thousand individuals the types of inflorescence and multifarious forms of leaves ; he marked the places of their abode, and returning in the fall saw and tasted the grapes, which had then come to maturity. After devoting years to the observation of the several constant varieties, he took cuttings from them and planted them in his garden at Wiesloch in order to observe their bearing in the state of cultivation. He had thus planted thirty-six varieties, when in the year 1842, a very favourable wine-year, most of his plants bore very perfect fruit, and brought it to the utmost maturity. None of these plants had changed their original character by cultivation. Bronner caused accurate pictorial representations of their fruit to be made. Already, during the time of blossoming, he had obtained faithful portraits of the flowers, leaves, and branches by a kind of nature printing, and when these were coloured by the artist the whole formed a complete botanical atlas of the wild vines of the Upper Rhine valley.

At the same time Bronner made an accurate botanical diagnosis of, and attributed a suitable Latin name to each variety, and arranged the whole in a special system, based upon the construction of the flowers and the formation of the fruit.

The inflorescence of these wild vines shows three distinct forms. A considerable number of plants exhibit only a male inflorescence without any umbilicus capable of fructification ; in the place where there should be a beginning of a berry, there is a yellow receptacle with honey. The plant produces an enormous number of blossoms, each of which is several inches in length, and with its long yellow stamina and terminal pollen bags resembles a brush such as is used for cleaning bottles. The flowers distribute a most agreeable odour around the plant.

A certain number of the other vines have exactly the same inflorescence as the cultivated vines ; they are hermaphrodite, with long projecting yellow stamina and pollen bags, and an umbilicus capable of impregnation. The leaves of these vines differ but little from those of the cultivated varieties, but the fruit has a different shape and a different chemical nature, being often very acid and sometimes quite inedible.

But the great majority of individuals as well as species of wild vine has a most peculiar inflorescence, differing considerably from the two forms just described. On looking upon an active blossom of this class, the spectator receives the impression that it is an undeveloped bunch of buds, from which the ordinary cover of the flower, the so-called crown or cap, which the cultivated vine always sheds completely, had not yet been thrown off. On close examination it is however seen that the cap is actually detached, although it remains hanging upon the flower, and the stamina are seen bent downwards below the basis of the future fruit. The stamina become, as botanists technically term them, “stamina recurvata,” and thus greatly differ in appearance from the “stamina erecta “ of the wild unproductive variety above described, and of the hermaphrodite wild and cultivated plants.

It is to be regretted that Bronner did not study the physiological relations of the male plants with erect stamina to those which showed the “stamina recurvata,” the more so as he himself surmised that these latter plants are unable to

fructify themselves, but require the male plants for fructification. The transfer of the pollen from the male to the female individuals, which are mostly standing at a distance from each other, is very probably effected by the agency of insects. The male plants seem to belong to different species or varieties, as indicated by differences in their leaves. But

these were not particularly inquired into by Bronner. The male plants were perhaps capable of fructifying any of the female plants, and thus producing new varieties by crossing.

It will be seen from our account of the American vines that they also occur in the polygamic as well as the dioic state. Monographers do not admit this to be a characteristic feature, but hold it...