Vitis vinifera subsp. vinifera

(b) Subsp. vinifera View in CoL ( subsp. sativa Hegi ): Flowers hermaphrodite. Fruit 6-22 mm, ellipsoid to globose, green, yellow, red or purplish-black, sweet; seeds 0-2, pyriform, with a rather long beak. 2zz = 38. Cultivated for wine-making and for the edible fruit in S. Europe and much of C. Europe, and widely naturalized.

The cultivated vine, here treated as a subspecies, is, like most plants long established in cultivation, impossible to accommodate satisfactorily in any orthodox taxonomic scheme. The vines of Europe are certainly derived, at least in part, by selection from subsp. sylvestris , which is native in a large part of C. & S.E. Europe, though the practice of cultivation (and therefore the cultivated clones) probably originated in S.W. Asia. Confusion of the native subspecies with naturalized plants of subsp. vinifera has made difficult the precise determination of the original

geographical limits, and some wild vines are probably recent hybrids between the two subspecies. Some authors, moreover, have suggested that other species of Vitis from the E. Mediterranean region, now extinct in the wild state, have contributed to the cultivated vine, but the evidence for this theory is slender. The situation has been further complicated in the past century by the introduction to Europe of many species of Vitis from North America. These are more or less resistant to the attacks of Viteus vitifolii (‘phylloxera’), a parasitic aphid which did immense damage to European vines from 1867 onwards. American vines are now used almost exclusively as stocks; the scions grafted on these are either cultivars o f V. vinifera subsp. vinifera , or hybrids between it and American species, or of purely American species or hybrids. These American vines are locally naturalized, especially around neglected or abandoned vineyards. The species planted on a large scale in Europe include V. aestivalis Michx , FI. Bor. Amer. 2: 230 (1803), V. berlandieri Planchon, Compt. Rend. Acad. {Paris) 91: 425 (1880), V. cordifolia Lam. , Tabi. Encycl. Méth. Bot. 2: 134 (1797), V. labrusca L. , Sp. PI. 203 (1753), V. rotundifolia Michx , Fl. Bor. Amer. 2: 231 (1803) ( V. vulpina auct., non L., Muscadinia rotundifolia (Michx) Small ), V. rupestris Scheele , Linnaea 21: 159 (1848) and V. vulpina L. , Sp. PI. 203 (1753) ( V. riparia Michx ). The following key may help in their identification, but it does not attempt to deal with hybrids.

1 Bark not shredding from old stems; cavity in young stems continuous across nodes; tendrils simple rotundifolia 1 Bark shredding from old stems; cavity in young stems interrupted by a diaphragm at each node; tendrils branched

2 A tendril or inflorescence present at every node; leaves covered beneath with a continuous, red-brown tomentum labrusca 2 Some nodes (usually 1 in 3) without tendril or inflorescence; leaves glabrous to fioccose beneath, but without continuous tomentum

3 Leaves fioccose with ferruginous hairs on veins beneath aestivalis 3 Leaves without ferruginous hairs beneath

4 Leaves cordate, with conspicuous and fairly deep basal sinus

5 Young shoots angled, fioccose; leaves mostly as wide as long berlandieri 5 Young shoots terete, not fioccose; leaves mostly longer than wide cordifolia 4 Leaves truncate at base, or subcordate with wide, shallow sinus

6 Stems long, diffuse; tendrils well-developed vulpina 6 Compact bush; tendrils few or none rupestris In addition to fruiting vines, several species of Fz'/z's from E. Asia are cultivated in gardens for their ornamental foliage; of these V. coignetiae Pulliat ex Planchon, Vigne Amer. Viticult. Eur. 7: 186 (1883), and V. thunbergii Siebold & Zucc. , Abh. Akad. Wiss. {München) 4(2): 198 (1846), are reported as locally naturalized. Both have a reddish-brown tomentum on the leaves, at least when young, as in V. labrusca , but have every third node without a tendril. V. coignetiae has terete young shoots and leaves scarcely lobed; V. thunbergii has angled young shoots and leaves deeply lobed.