VOL. XIII, PP. 195-198 DECEMBER 21, 1900 



PROCEEDINGS 



OF THE 



BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON 



RIBES MESCALERIUM, AN UNDESCRIBED CURRANT 

 FROM NEW MEXICO AND TEXAS. 



BY FREDERICK V. COVILLE. 



Dr. Valery Havard, in his report on the Flora of Western 

 and Southern Texas, identified one of his plants as Kibes vis- 

 cosissimum Pursh, and wrote of it as "the only gooseberry 

 seen in western Texas, growing sparingly in the Guadalupe 

 Mountains."* On the basis of the same observations Dr. John 

 M. Coulter included viscosissimum in his Botany of Western 

 Texas, commenting on it as occurring "sparingly in the moun 

 tains west of the Pecos, and apparently the only gooseberry of 

 western Texas. "f Dr. Havard's specimen, which is in the 

 National Herbarium, was collected in the Guadalupe Mountains, 

 El Paso County, Texas, in October, 1881. It has neither flow 

 ers nor fruit, and has long been a puzzle on account of its pe 

 culiar vegetative characters, intermediate between those of vis- 

 cosissimum and cereum. In Professor Coulter's description the 

 flower and fruit characters were of course drawn from Rocky 

 Mountain specimens of typical viscosissimum, so that the Texas 

 plant has really never been described, nor does any good material 

 of it seem to have been collected. 



*Havard, Proc. U. S. Nat. Mus. 8 : 524. 1885. 

 fContr. U. S. Nat. Herb.2 : 109. 1891. 



41 BIOL. Soc. WASH. VOL. XIII, 1900. (195) 



