Narrative
Type = American Hybrid. Per Munson (see citation): [About V. girdiana] "Southern California Grape. Plant: climbing high, robust, in its native regions often forming dense masses, or canopies on undergrowth and small trees, the foliage presenting a light greyish-green aspect. Roots: rather soft, penetrating, not fully resistant to Phylloxera. Wood: young, densely whitish wooly, the wool becoming flocculent and shedding at maturity; cylindrical or little angled, finely and regularly striated; bark at maturity cinnamon, or reddish-brown; rays thin, wide apart, pores numerous; rather soft; internodes of medium length, 1 1/2 to' to 4' or 5' [ ... ] Leaves: stipules small to medium, rounded, 1/8' long or less, membranaceous, scatteringly hairy, pale; petiole, slender, 1' to 3' long, woolly, or pubescent or both, having a distinct narrow groove along upper side; blade generally long cordate in outline, rarely lobed length of midrib 3' to 4' or more, width of blade 4 1/2' to 6', or more; [ ... ] Cluster: fertile,--medium to large, 5' to 8' or more long, forked into two nearly equal parts, at an obtuse or broad angle, each fork generally compounded divided, peduncle 1' to 2' long and with the pale bluish-green or whitish-green rachis, thinly covered with cottony hairs; pedicel long, 1/6' to 1/4', slender, little or not at all warty, pale yellowish-white, enlarging very little upward, cluster difficult to detach from vine. Sterile cluster very large and compound. Flowers: staminate, on long slender pedicels, stamens large, erect; fertile,--stamens small, reflexed, short; pistil delicate; slender short style; small stigma. Berry: small, 1/4' to 1/3' in diameter, spherical, black with little or no bloom, persistant, skin thin, tough, and pungent to taste, pulp juicy, melting, very acid till very ripe when it is agreeably sweet, but chemical analysis (Prof. E.W. Hilgarde, in report of Experimental Station, Berkeley, California) shows it deficient in sugar, tataric acid and tannin, as compared with V. californica (Bethem), from the Sacramento Valley. Seeds: 1 to 3 obovate or broadly obcordate; 1/6' to 1/5' long by 1/8' to 1/6' broad, pale pinkish; beak short, blunt or sometimes small and acute, raphe slender, hair-like from beak to notch in top of seed; where it becomes obscure; chalaza, in center of back of seed, narrow, depressed, often a mere rim or crescent in a rather deep basin; ventral depression short, wide apart, shallow."