lOG CovilLe — -Rihes Mescalerium, an Uii<h'scril>etJ Ciirrnnt. 



In 1807 Professor E. O. Wooten collected in the White 

 Mountains of Lincoln County, New Mexico, a currant which he 

 distributed with a mark of doubt as Rihes cereum Dougl., No. 

 281 of his collection of that year. The specimen was remark- 

 able in being black-fruited, the fruit of cereion being invariably 

 of a light red color. Concluding that this represented an un- 

 described species I wrote, early last S]>ring, to Professor 

 Wooten, who courteously loaned me his collection of New Mex- 

 ican Ribes. Among these was another fruiting specimen of 

 the new currant, from the Sacramento Mountains, and a frag- 

 mentary flowering specimen from the White Mountains. 



As Mr. Vernon Bailey, of the Biological Survey, expected to 

 visit southeastern New Mexico during the summer I requeste<l 

 him to look out for this currant, and he has lately handed me 

 some fine flowering specimens of it from the Sacramento Moun- 

 tains. From all this material tlie following description has 

 been drawn. 



Ribes mescalerium sp. iiov. 



Erect shrub, without spines or prickles; one-year-old I wl.us cream to 

 buff-colored, glandular-hairy, the epidermis on older branches soon 

 splitting and weathering away, leaving the branches chestnut brown 

 often overlaid with some thin grayish tissue; leaf-blades roughly orbicu- 

 lar in outline, usually broader than long, 1..5 to 2. .5 or sometimes even 

 :{..) cm. wide, truncate, broadly wedge-shaped, or somewhat cordate at 

 base, 3 to 5-lobed, the lobes unevenly crenate-dentate, or even indis- 

 linctly lobulate, with gland-tipped hairs on bolh surfaces, and on the 

 lower surface some glandless pubescence also: petioles usually a liltle 

 shorter than the blades, closely pubescent and with a few larger gland- 

 tipped hairs; racemes short, almost capitate, closely 2 to 4 or sometimes 

 even O-ilowered, the glandular-hairy and pubescent detlexed peduncle 

 coyimonly 8 to 15 mm. in length; bracts obovate, sessile, toothed toward 

 the apex, glandular-hairy, 3 to .5 or sometimes even 7 mm. long; flowers 

 sessile or nearly so, the usually very short pedicels glandular-hairy 

 and pubescent; ovary glandular-hairy; tube of calyx (moist) about o to 

 (■) mm. long and iJ.o broad, sparingly glandular-hairy, greenish while, the 

 reflexed ovate-oblong lobes broadly acute or obtuse, 2 to ?> mm. long, pu- 

 bescent on the outside toward the apex; petals white, rotund, aboiU 2 

 mm. long; stamens with filaments adhering to the calyx tube as far as 

 tiic throat, the free portion shorter than the anther, this when expanded 

 about 1 mm. in breadth and length; style stout, smooth, shortly two- 

 lobed at- the slightly exserted apex; fruit spherical, black, without bloom, 

 sparingly glandular-hairy, .'5 to 8 mm. in diameter in dried specimens, 

 the Hattened ones sometimes even 10 mm. 



