Narrative
Type = Species. Per Galet (see citation): "DESCRIPTION: Growing tip: felty, rose-colored with rust-colored hairs. Young leaves: downy, lower surface rose and rust colored. Leaf: truncate, 045, 046, and 145 to 247-2 to 3-58, medium to large, generally entire but can be deeply lobed, very bullate and crimped, thick, shiny, waxy, lower surface is a glaucous green with rust-colored, cobwebby hairs; petiolar sinus narrow or closed V-shape; teeth pointed, flat, barely marked by the mucro (tip). Shoot: finely ribbed, more or less reddish, glabrous or pubescent depending on the cultivar; may be rough at the base or, in some cases have short, prickly hairs. Flower clusters: small, reddish; male or female. Cluster: small, fairly compact; berries medium, round, black, very pulpy, characteristic, unpleasant flavor. Seeds: medium, 5 tot 6 mm, triagular, elongated, clear brown or reddish; short, thickset, clear yellow beak; chalaza, round in position 0.50; ventral depressions very light, sometimes nonexistent. Growth habit: vigorous, climbing. 1. Felty, rose-rusty growing tip. 2. Truncate, waxy, crimped leaf, resembling a cabbage leaf. APTITUDES: Some common names for V. aestivalis are Common blue grape, Bunch, Pigeon, Rusty, Chicken, Summer, Sour, Little, Swamp, Duck-sho, and Winter grape. Budbreak is at the beginning of April; bloom is fairly late, in mid-June; and leaf fall is in mid-November. V. aestivalis is of no interest as a rootstock because its resistance to phylloxera is only fair (9/20); it is sensitive to lime and its roots very poorly if at all. The leaves are free of phylloxera galls and it has a good resistance to downy and powdery mildews. According to Loomis, it also has a very good resistance or tolerance to Pierce's disease. Owing to the relatively large size of its berries (compared with other native species) and its good resistance to disease, V. aestivalis has numerous commercially successful descendants. The proliferation of descendents is in part due to Jaeger 70, a rupestris-Lincecumii cross which is in the first generation of many of the Seibel and Couderc hybrids (Seibel 1000, Couderc 7120). Herbemont and Black Spanish (Lenoir), natural descendants of aestivalis, were grown in France after the phylloxera crisis and are grown commercially today in Texas. Cynthiana and Norton, natural hybrids of Labrusca and aestivalis, are grown commercially in Missouri and Arkansas. Finally, one of the leading New York wine grapes, Delaware, is a vinifera-Labrusca-Bourquiniana cross. DISTRIBUTION: V. aestivalis can be found almost anywhere in the Eastern and Central United States, from New England to Florida, and from Wisconsin to Texas."