AN OHIO STATION FOR AMPELOPSIS CORDATA.
W. A. KELLERMAN.
(Plate 1.)
While collecting in Scioto County on the 8th of July, 1900, I was
fortunate enough to come across an indigenous specimen of Ampelopsis
cordata. [1]The station for the plant is on a hillside one mile east of
Portsmouth, Ohio. The character of the environment is indicated in
figure 3, Plate 1; the plant in question growing on the bank by the
roadside at a point immediately above the bicycle in the central part of
the picture. The photograph from which the half tone was made shows only
a portion of the high hills that border the Ohio river. The soil is clay
and not regarded as very fertile. It is generally the case perhaps that
this species grows in “swamps and along river banks,” as stated in the
manuals, but the ground here is high and dry.
Footnote 1:
Since the MS. for this article was passed to the printer, the locality
was again visited and several plants, some of large size, were found
further up the hillside.
The published statements as to the distribution of Ampelopsis cordata
are not uniform. Riddell, in his synopsis of the Western Flora, says it
occurs in the Alleghany Mountains west to Arkansas. Torrey and Gray, in
the Flora of North America, Vol. 1, under the name of Vitis indivisa,
give its distribution as Southern States west to Louisiana and Arkansas.
Wood using the same name in his class-book, says Southern States to St.
Louis. In Gray’s Manual, last edition, the plant is given under the name
of Cissus ampelopsis with the statement that it occurs in Virginia to
Illinois and Southward. The occurrence as noted by Britton and Brown in
the Illustrated Flora, makes the species still more decidedly southern,
namely, southern Virginia to Florida, west to Illinois, Kansas and
Texas. Prof. Stanley Coulter, in a Catalogue of the Flowering Plants and
Ferns indigenous to Indiana, published in 1899 in the 24th Annual Report
of the Department of Geology and Natural Resources of Indiana, says this
species occurs “in the central and southern counties of Indiana in
swamps and moist woods.”
In the fifth edition of Gray’s Manual the range of this Ampelopsis
(under the name of Vitis indivisa) was given as “West Virginia, Ohio and
southward.” In answer to an inquiry as to what in the Gray Herbarium was
perhaps the basis for the reference to the Ohio distribution, Mr.
Merritt L. Fernald kindly wrote me as follows:—“I find in the herbarium
a specimen of Cissus ampelopsis marked ‘Ohio’. It is one of the old
Torrey and Gray specimens and no further data are given.”
Dr. Millspaugh lists this species as Cissus ampelopsis in the Flora of
West Virginia and adds on the authority of Mertz and Guttenberg that it
also occurs in Ohio, near Wheeling. Upon inquiry of Supt. Mertz, I learn
that his notes of work upwards of twenty years ago contain no mention of
this species at Wheeling, West Virginia, or at Bellaire, Ohio. He
further informs me that what was taken for this Ampelopsis at Bellaire
was probably Vitis cordifolia, three forms of which were found growing
on the islands of the Ohio River near Wheeling. Of these he adds in a
letter to the writer, “I think we probably decided that one was V.
indivisa; but I feel sure that it was not and you are probably the first
to find it in Ohio.”
It will be observed that the distribution as noted by Professor Stanley
Coulter extends its range still further northward than my Ohio station.
It is likely that its occurrence still further northward in Ohio may be
detected by assiduous collectors.
I wish to say a word concerning the ornamental character of this native
vine. The foliage is bright green and very handsome. A figure of a
single leaf is shown in Plate 1, figure 2. This is reduced from a
photograph taken with the leaf itself used as a negative. I have never
detected a fungous attack or insect depredation on the leaves. The small
dull-colored bluish fruits in loose panicles when abundant are somewhat
ornamental. The vine is a vigorous grower and clings firmly to supports.
Figure 4 shows a plant used for ornamental purposes growing on the south
side of the Botanical Building at the Ohio State University. A figure
from a still more vigorous specimen was shown by Mrs. Kellerman in
Vick’s Magazine, January, 1900. This was made from a photograph of a
specimen growing at the north porch of a residence in Columbus, Ohio.
The same has been reproduced by Dr. Halsted in Bulletin No. 144 of the
New Jersey Experiment Station. The species can be transplanted readily.
One of the plants just referred to was dug up in June in Linn County,
Kansas, and easily survived its rough treatment. Roots were taken from
the Portsmouth plant in July this year and they are now growing and
producing stems. We have repeatedly transplanted specimens that were
grown from roots and from cuttings in the green house and always with
success.
A word as to the synonymy should perhaps be given. The species was
described by Michaux in 1803 under the name of Ampelopsis cordata.
Persoon in 1805 proposed the name Cissus ampelopsis for the species. It
was unfortunate that he did not retain the specific name, cordata; for
there seems to have been no need of discarding that part of its name
even if the genus had been originally misapprehended. Had he followed
the most commendable usage of the modern systematists, he would have
published the name in this form: Cissus cordata (Mx.) Pers. In 1811
Wildenow published the name as Vitis indivisa and here as before
unnecessarily a new specific name was given. Many authors have regarded
the plant as a Vitis rather than an Ampelopsis or a Cissus. We rely,
however, on Dr. Britton’s authority and use the name Ampelopsis cordata,
relegating the other names to synonymy.