28 Ribes Aureum and Ribes Lentum. 



as did Dr. Gray, to both that plant and lentum. Dr. P. A. 

 Rydberg in raising parvulum to specific rank* cited the original 

 description of Gray and that of Professor Coulter's Manual, 

 assigned to it a range * 'among rocks on the highest mountains 

 [of Montana] at an altitude of about 3000 m.,"'and cited four 

 specimens. A duplicate of one of these (Rydberg & Bessey 

 No. 4251) is in the National Herbarium and this belongs to the 

 smooth-leaved plant already mentioned. But another of the 

 specimens cited by Dr. Rydberg (Tweedy No. 831) is clearly 

 referable to lentum. It is evident therefore that the confusion 

 of two plants under the name parvulum still continues, and in 

 deciding which of them should be treated as the real parvulum, 

 it seems proper to exclude the plant known as lentum. There 

 fore the first of the specimens in the Harvard University Her 

 barium cited above, collected in the Rocky Mountains of British 

 America, is designated as the type of Ribes lacustre parvulum 

 Gray. 



The name of the species necessarily becomes Ribes lentum 

 (Jones) Coville & Rose, for the varietal name molle, if raised to 

 specific rank as has been done by Mr. Thomas Howell,f cannot 

 be maintained, as it is a homonym of the earlier Ribes molle of 

 Poeppig, 1858. It is believed that these are all the published 

 names for the plant, although Professor Aven Nelson has re 

 cently distributed specimens with a herbarium name, the publi 

 cation of which, after the establishment of the identity of his 

 plant with Ribes lentum, has now been abandoned. 



Ribes lentum is distinguished from Ribes lacustre by its 

 smaller size, smaller leaves, shorter and fewer-flowered racemes 

 and especially its pubescent and glandular-hairy foliage. To 

 this must be added another important character noted by Dr. 

 J. N. Rose in Wyoming in 1893, namely the color and taste of 

 the fruit. In Ribes lacustre the mature fruit is dark purple or 

 almost black, and to most persons nauseating; in lentum the 

 berry is a bright red, and though rather dry is quite palatable, 

 indeed Dr. Rose found it in common use for jam. The species 

 has a wide distribution in the high mountains of the arid west; 

 from Arizona and New Mexico northward in the Rocky Moun 

 tains through Colorado and Wyoming to Idaho, and westward 



*Mem. N. Y. Bot. Gard. 1: 203. 1900. 

 fHowell, Fl. Northw. Am. 1: 209. j 1898. 



