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_. With this brief history of the formation of the genus Vitis as it now stands we pass to a consideration of the botanical characters of Vitis. From the time when botanists first commenced to work on the grape there has been a constant search for taxonomic characters for separating the various species clearly and distinctly. Many of the earlier descriptions, while they are correct so far as they go, do not mention enough characters to enable one to distinguish between similar species. It has been found that dependence upon the shape of the leaf, size of berry, size of plant, date of ripening, and similar characters, is very uncertain and unsatisfactory and that, while these characters are always mentioned in descriptions as indicating the intrinsic value of a species, they are of little value from a systematic standpoint. There are, however, several characters of Vitis which have great taxonomic importance. One of the fundamental characters which determine a species is continuous or intermittent tendrils, first noticed by Professor A. Braun[120] of Berlin. _Vitis labrusca_, the common Fox grape, is peculiar in that there are tendrils, or an inflorescence, opposite nearly every leaf; this arrangement is known as _continuous tendrils_. All other species have two leaves with a tendril opposite each and a third leaf without a tendril; such species are said to have _intermittent tendrils_. Continuity of tendrils is a variable character and to ascertain which of the two forms is present it is necessary to have vigorous, healthy, typical canes. The lowest leaves of canes usually have no opposite tendrils. This character is shown in the color-plates of the several species. A closely related character is that of the number of inflorescences borne by a species. All species excepting _Vitis labrusca_ average two inflorescences to the cane but the last named species, at least in some of its subdivisions, may bear from three to six inflorescences, each of course in the place of a tendril opposite a leaf.