Vitis alia
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Authority
Hollick, Charles A. 1927. The Flora of the Saint Eugene Silts, Kootenay Valley, British Columbia. Mem. New York Bot. Gard. 7: 389-428.
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Family
Vitaceae
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Scientific Name
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Description
Species Description - Leaf about 11.5 centimeters in length by about 13.5 centimeters in maximum width, obscurely trilobate, deeply cordate at the base; margin coarsely and sharply dentate; nervation 3-palmate from the base, craspedodrome; lateral primaries subtending angles of about 45° with the midrib, profusely branched from the under sides, the basilar branches similarly branched from the under sides; main secondary nerves five on each side, subtending acute angles with the midrib, irregularly spaced and disposed, curving slightly upwTard and recurved as they terminate in the marginal dentitions.
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Discussion
PLATE 43, FIGURE 1
"Vitis n. sp.?" Hollick, Summary Kept. (loc. cit.), p. 135.
This leaf resembles certain of the individual leaf forms of our existing native grapes, such as Vitis riparia Michaux, V. cordifolia Michaux, and V. aestivalis Michaux. It appears to be somewhat unequal-sided, one of the lateral primaries being curved inward toward its extremity and subtending a slightly more acute angle with the midrib than the other one, which latter is more divergent and almost straight distally.
It also appears to resemble the Eocene Tertiary species, Vitis olriki Heer, originally described and figured in connection with a specimen from Greenland, and subsequently identified by Lesquereux, from deposits of approximately equivalent age in Wyoming. In view, however, of the incomplete condition of our specimen it would be useless, and possibly misleading, to infer anything more than a resemblance to the general type of leaf which is represented by both the existing and the extinct species—a type which has apparently undergone but little modification in surficial characters since the time of its first appearance in connection with a species of the flora of early Tertiary time.
The genus Vitis is represented in a number of collections of Pleistocene plants, but heretofore only by the seeds, and by a single tendril, so that we have no leaf of any of these Pleistocene grapes with which to compare our specimen, and the extensive heterophylly that obtains in most of the existing species of grapes would render exact and satisfactory comparison with any one of them impossible. In the circumstances I have thought it the better course to describe our specimen as representing an extinct species, different from any heretofore recorded.