1911] Fernald,— Varieties of Ribes hirtellum 75 
In their treatment of the gooseberries Coville € Britton not only 
consider Ribes oxyacanthoides, var. calcicola, a plant with densely 
white-tomentose leaves and petioles, as identical with the “glabrous 
or sparingly pubescent” Grossularia hirtella; but reduce outright Ribes 
saxosum Hook., a plant with cordate leaves, although separating the 
thus constituted G. hirtella from the western plants which have “leaf- 
blades truncate to somewhat cordate at the base” by the key-char- 
acter, “leaf-blades wedge-shaped at the base, except on an occasional 
aberrant plant,” and thus indicating a belief that the cordate-leaved 
extreme of the northeastern plant is only an occasional aberration. 
To those, however, who are familiar with the flora of Newfoundland 
and eastern Canada, it is well known that the extreme variation of 
R. hirtellum with cordate or subcordate leaves on the fruiting branches 
is a very characteristic plant of certain areas, forming extensive 
colonies (as at Crabb’s Point, Bay of Islands, Newfoundland; on 
the slopes of Cap Barré, Percé or on some of the sea-cliffs of Tourelle 
and Bic, Quebec) where its abundance indicates that it is a real 
phase of R. hirtellum, superficially so like the western R. inerme 
that it has more than once been identified with it: by Coville in 
publishing his R. oxyacanthoides saxosum (Hook.), which was based in 
part upon Hooker’s description of the eastern plant, in part upon the 
western R. inerme; and by Robinson & Fernald who, in the 7th edition 
of Gray’s Manual, indicated the var. sarosum as extending to the 
Rocky Mountains. 
A recent study of the group, brought about by the receipt of true 
Ribes oxyacanthoides from northern Michigan, shows that the cordate- 
leaved R. saxosum Hook. is unquestionably an extreme of R. hirtellum, 
but that it can be separated fromthe western R. inerme (which also 
has cordate or subcordate leaves) only by the closest scrutiny. In 
the eastern plant the leaves are rarely quite glabrous but are usually 
a little pilose on the nerves beneath or on the margins; in the western 
frequently quite glabrous or with minute pubescence distributed over 
both surfaces; in the eastern plant the petioles commonly bear some 
long plumose frequently gland-tipped trichomes; in the western 
plant such plumose trichomes are unusual, though sometimes well 
developed, but the petioles generally (but not always) bear numerous 
sessile or subsessile glands; in the eastern plant the bracts of the 
raceme are glandless, though often pilose-margined, but in the west- 
ern they are ordinarily glandular-ciliate. Whether or not the western 
