1910] Fernald,— Plants of Wineland the Good 33 
which most closely resembles the European Ribes rubrum and R. 
vulgare (the shrubs commonly cultivated as Red Currants) is Ribes 
triste, a species so similar to R. rubrum that in American botanical 
writings it passed under that name until 1907, when its technical 
differences were admitted! by our-botanists. This species, Ribes 
triste, occurs across subarctic America, and in the East extends south- 
ward along the coast to the vicinity of Eastport in easternmost Maine; ? 
though among the mountains of the interior it is found southward as 
far as Mt. Greylock in western Massachusetts. ‘The only other 
indigenous Red Currant of eastern America is Ribes prostratum, which 
differs from R. rubrum of Scandinavia and its American representative, 
R. triste, in having bristly instead of smooth berries and in an un- 
mistakable and very powerful odor and flavor which have suggested 
for it the colloquial name “Skunk Currant.” ‘This species, the fruit of 
which, though unattractive to the average New Englander, is eaten 
with relish by the less sophisticated woodsmen of French Canada, 
abounds on rocky slopes and barrens in the northern part of the conti- 
nent; and in the coastal region is known from Ungava Bay and Hope- 
dale, Labrador, to southern Maine, reaching perhaps its southernmost 
coastal stations on the islands off Kennebunkport, where it was re- 
marked by Champlain? in 1605 and where it still abounds. In the 
interior it follows southward among the mountains to Mts. Watatic and 
Wachusett in Massachusetts and the Taconic Mts. of northwestern 
Connecticut. 
Of the two Black Currants of eastern America, one, Ribes lacustre, 
with bristly fruit, is found from the east coast of Labrador across the 
subarctic country to the mouth of the Mackenzie, and southward 
along the coast to the Cranberry Isles, off Mt. Desert, Maine, and 
1 See Fernald, Ruopona, ix. 1—3 (1907). 
2 Since the range of Ribes triste was worked out in 1907 and again for the 7th edition 
of Gray's Manual, limiting its northern range with Newfoundland, the writer has 
examined material, kindly loaned him by Dr. J. M. Macoun of the Geological Survey of 
Canada, from latitude 56? on the Labrador Peninsula, and has received characteristic 
specimens, collected at Eskimo Point on the southern coast of the Labrador Peninsula 
by Dr. C. W. Townsend, The southernmost coastal station yet known for this species 
is at Pembroke, Maine. 
3 “En ces isles y a tant de groiselles rouges que l'on ne voit autre chose en la pluspart, 
& vn nombre infini de tourtes [pigeons de passage], dont nous en prismes bonne quantité, 
Ce port aux isles est par la hauteur de 43. degrez 25. minutes de latitude." — Les Voyages 
de Champlain (ed. Laverdiére), ed. 2, iii. 56. In May, 1895, Mr. Warren H. Manning and 
the present writer visited the islands off Cape Porpoise, Kennebunkport, to make as 
complete a canvass as possible of the flora, and found Ribes prostratum in profusion on 
Trott’s Island. 
