Wild Flowers: An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and Their Insect VisitorsBlanchan, Neltje
Science
Wild Flowers: An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and Their Insect Visitors
Blanchan, Neltje
Wild flowers -- North America
The phylloxera having destroyed many of the finest vineyards in
Europe, it would seem that Americans have the best of chances to
supply the world with high-class wines, for there is not a State
in the Union where the vine will not flourish. Here its worst
enemy is mildew, a parasitical fungus which attacks the leaves,
revealing itself in yellowish-brown patches on the upper side,
and thin, frosty patches underneath. Soon the leaves become sere,
and then they fall. The microscope reveals a miniature forest of
growth in each leaf, with the threadlike roots of the fungi
searching about the leaf cells for food. To burn old leaves, and
to blow sulphur over the vine while it is wet, are efficacious
remedies. Bees and wasps which puncture grapes to feast on them,
are the innocent means of destroying quantities.
Both the RIVERSIDE or SWEET-SCENTED GRAPE (V. vulpina; formerly
V. cordifolia, var. riparia) - whose bluish-black, bloom-covered
fruit begins to ripen in July; and the FROST, CHICKEN, POSSUM, or
WINTER GRAPE (V. cordifolia), whose smaller, shining black
berries are not at their best till after frost, grow along
streams and preferably in rocky situations. The shining, light
green, thin leaves of the sweet-scented species are sharply
lobed, the three to seven lobes have acute teeth, and the
tendrils are intermittent. The frost grape's leaves, which are
commonly three or four inches wide, are deeply heart-shaped,
entire (rarely slightly three-lobed), tapering to a long point
and acutely toothed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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