Chap. X. THE GOOSEBERRY. 377 



sorts with wrong names," and this shows that all the kinds, 

 numerous as they are, can be recognised with certainty. 



The bushes differ in their manner of growth, being erect, or 

 spreading, or pendulous. The periods of leafing and flowering 

 differ both absolutely and relatively to each other thus the White- 

 smith produces early flowers, which from not being protected 

 by the foliage, as it is believed, continually fail to produce fruit. 122 

 The leaves vary in size, tint, and in depth of lobes; they are 

 smooth, downy, or hairy on the upper surface. The branches 

 are more or less downy or spinose ; " the Hedgehog has probably 

 derived its name from the singular bristly condition of its shoots 

 and fruit." The branches of the wild gooseberry, I may remark, 

 are smooth, with the exception of thorns at the bases of the buds. 

 The thorns themselves are either very small, few and single, or 

 very large and triple ; they are sometimes reflexed and much 

 dilated at their bases. In the different varieties the fruit varies 

 in abundance, in the period of maturity, in hanging until shrivelled, 

 and greatly in size, " some sorts having their fruit large during 

 a very early period of growth, whilst others are small, until nearly 

 ripe." The fruit varies also much in colour, being red, yellow, 

 green, and white — the pulp of one dark-red gooseberry being 

 tinged with yellow ; in flavour ; in being smooth or downy, — few, 

 however, of the Red gooseberries, whilst many of the so-called 

 "Whites, are downy ; or in being so spinose that one kind is called 

 Henderson's Porcupine. Two kinds acquire when mature a powdery 

 bloom on their fruit. The fruit varies in the thickness and vein- 

 ing of the skin, and, lastly, in shape, being spherical, oblong, oval, 

 or obovate. 123 



I cultivated fifty-four varieties, and, considering how greatly the 

 fruit differs, it was curious how closely similar the flowers were in 

 all these kinds. In only a few I detected a trace of difference in the 

 size or colour of the corolla. The calyx differed in a rather greater 

 degree, for in some kinds it was much redder than in others ; and 

 in one smooth white gooseberry it was unusually red. The calyx 

 also differed in the basal part being smooth or woolly, or covered 

 with glandular hairs. It deserves notice, as being contrary to what 

 might have been expected from the law of correlation, that a 

 smooth red gooseberry had a remarkably hairy calyx. The flowers 

 of the Sportsman are furnished with very large coloured bracteae ; 

 and this is the most singular deviation of structure which I have 

 observed. These same flowers also varied much in the number of 

 the petals, and occasionally in the number of the stamens and 

 pistils ; so that they were semi-monstrous in structure, yet they 

 produced plenty of fruit. Mr. Thompson remarks that in the 



122 Loudon's 'Gardener's Magazine,' 'Transact. Hort. Soc.,' vol. i., 2nd 

 vol. iv. 1828, p. 112. series, 1835, p. 218, from which 



123 The fullest account of the goose- most of the foregoing facts are taken. 

 \>erry is given by Mr. Thompson in 



