2 Coville Ribes Coloradense, an Undescribed Currant. 



Twin Lakes, f and these specimens are now known to represent 

 two distinct species. Dr. Rothrock cited also, as synonymous, 

 a third plant, Watson's Ribes sanguineum variegatum,\ a cita 

 tion which led Dr. Watson later to reject Dr. Rothrock's 

 species. The name Ribes wolfii has consequently disappeared 

 from most botanical works. In this confusion it becomes neces 

 sary to restrict the use of the name and I therefore designate as 

 the type of Ribes wolfii the flowering specimen in the National 

 Herbarium collected by John Wolf in June, 1873, at Mosquito 

 Pass, a few miles east of Leadville, Colorado, at an elevation 

 between 10,000 and 11,000 feet. I have found Ribes wolfii in 

 herbaria under the names prostratum, mscossissimum, and hud- 

 sonianum, with none of which species is it very closely related. 

 Its nearest relative is Watson's Ribes sanguineum variegatum, 

 a plant centering about the northern Sierra Nevada of Califor 

 nia and distinct from true sanguineum. There is a question as 

 to the proper name of this plant, which at the present time can 

 not be satisfactorily determined. It may, therefore, continue 

 to be called Ribes sanguineum, variegatitm until its correct 

 name as a species can be definitely ascertained. Both variegtf- 

 tum and wolfii are plants with unarmed stems, almost smooth, 

 maple-like leaf-blades, racemose inflorescence, the bracts ovate 

 or obovate and with thin hyaline margins, ovaries and fruit 

 bearing glanduliferous hairs, flowers greenish or reddish, and 

 calyx-tube not more than 3 mm. long and shorter than the lobes. 

 Wolfii diifers from variegatum, however, in its usually green 

 ish-white calyx about 5 mm. long, its tube about 1 mm. long 

 and the lobes about 3 or 4 times the length of the tube; petals 

 broadly rhombic-obovate, about a third the length of the calyx 

 lobes; and anthers, when fully expanded, a little broader than 

 long. I have seen no mature fruit of the species. Ribes san 

 guineum variegatum has a usually red calyx about 6 mm. long, 

 the tube about 2 mm. long, and the lobes about 1^ to 2 times 



fThe localities are attached to the proper specimens through a com 

 parison of the data furnished by Rothrock's original description, by the 

 label on the specimens, and by the references to Wolf's itinerary given 

 in the Report of the Secretary of War for 1873, volume 2, part 2, pages. 

 483 and 484. 



JWats. Bot. King Surv. 100. 1871. 



Wats. Bibl. Ind. 337. 1878 



