Narrative
Type = Hybrid. Per Munson (see citation): "Plant: Very slender growth, much more slender than V. rotundifolia; often branching, tips extending rapidly, appearing naked, owing to slow expansion of leaves. Roots: Large, little fibrous, pale yellow, covered with thick, firm warty bark, transversely wrinkled, possessing a fiery pungency, penetrating. Wood: When young 6 to 7 angled, dark red or crimson, nearly smooth or thinly set with silky hairs, with age becoming covered with numerous minute punctate dots or lenticose cells, like warts set in rows on the fine unequal striae, becoming more distinct and increasing with age till the vine has a rasp-like feeling as though covered with coarse sand, and acquiring a dark gray color; bark with little checking, no thready fiber, closely persistant; transverse section of ripe wood oval, with age becoming elliptical or even depressed elliptical, dense but less so than V. rotundifolia; [...] Leaves: Stipules very small, 1/12' long, orbicular, margin ciliate, pale pinkish; petiole usually as long as half the width of blade, sometimes more, more slender than in V. rotundifolia and proportionately shorter, deeply and distinctly grooved above, finely pubescent, purplish crimson, attached to blade at right or more acute angle; [...] Cluster: Forked, cyme-like, from the node of the tendril; divisions obscurely striated, warty, pale rusty brown when mature; pedicels 1/4' to 1/3' long, medium thick, little enlarged upward, warty. Flowers: 12 to 50 in fertile clusters; stamens and petals usually 5, often 6 and sometimes 7; in fertile, stamens about 1/12' long, recurved and bent laterally, little or no perceptible disc; ovary small, broad and short; style very short, about half the thickness of ovary, in length; stigma very small, semi-globose, nearly sessile,--stamens long, straight, ascending at an angle of 45 [degrees] to 50 [degrees] from axis of receptacle extended. Berries: 12 to 30, small, 1/5' to 1/3' in diameter, round, shining black, covered with numerous small brown punctate, or lenticose dots, but never having prunose bloom, quite persistent; very little pulp, juicy, with crimson or violet coloring mater next skin, which is thin; vinous, sometimes quite good but generally acid and devoid of the peculiar Muscadine flavor and odor common in V. rotundifolia. Seeds: 3 to 4 in each berry, small, 1/6' to 1/5' long by 1/10' to 1/16' broad, being not more than 1/4 or 1/5 as large in bulk on the average as in V. rotundifolia, sides often unequal, surface glossy, dark greenish-brown coffee color, much darker than in V. rotundifolia, beak very small, short, acute, or none; raphe plainly or obscurely visible but not prominent within the notch at top of seed till it reaches the inner face, there hair-like; [...] Vigorous but slender, more upright when young than V. rotundifolia, which is less branched and more sprawling in young vines, but becomes much more drooping, or weeping or trellis than V. rotundifolia, the lateral branches very slender, almost filiform. The ever-blooming character of this species, with its smaller seeds, larger clusters, more vinous and acid than V. rotundifolia, and its freedom from disease, may render it an excellent material with which to hybridize the finer V. vinifera, varieties to secure valuable grapes for the extreme south and and the tropics. Hybrids of this with V. coriacea and probably with other species have been found." The original collection was unsuccesful. It was received on 01/19/90 from Robert Zehnder.