🍇 Black Eagle

Black Eagle is an American table grape hybrid with large black berries and showy clusters. It was bred by Stephen Underhill in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, USA, from a seed of Concord pollinated by Black Prince; the variety first fruited in 1866. Another name is Underhill's 8-12.

The VIVC catalogue gives the same pedigree from the breeder's data and identifies Black Prince with the old variety Rose of Peru; this has not been checked with genetic markers. According to Ulysses Hedrick (The Grapes of New York, 1908), Black Eagle is a full brother of Black Defiance from the same cross and closely resembles it, but ripens a full 3 weeks earlier, about with Concord. Underhill sent the variety out for testing, and it was put on sale without his consent.

Hedrick rated the quality of the berries as the very best and the clusters as among the showiest of hybrids: clusters of nearly two pounds were grown for exhibitions. The leaf, like that of the cultivated grapevine, is deeply lobed and handsome. The weak points are a vine lacking in vigour, cold hardiness and productiveness, fruit prone to black rot, and self-sterile flowers; VIVC also records them as female. Commercially the variety failed. Red Eagle descends from it: a seedling bred by T. V. Munson and received by the station in 1888. The variety is kept in 2 collections.

Why it matters to you. Black Eagle shows an early attempt to combine the flavour of European grapes with the American Concord: the flavour worked, the hardiness did not. Hedrick urged amateurs not to lose this variety, and its self-sterility explains why a single vine without another variety nearby may bear no crop.