Coville — Ribes Mescaleriiim, an Undescribed Cvrrant. 197 



Type specimen in the United States National Herbarium, collected 

 July 21, 1S99, in the Sacramento Mountains, at Fresnal, Otero County, 

 New Mexico, at an altitude of 7,200 leet, by E. (). Wooten. 



So far as known Jitbes mescalerncm is confined to the White 

 .•111(1 Sacramento Mountains of I^incoln and Otero counties, Ncm^ 

 Mexico, and the neigliboring Guadalupe Mountains which ex- 

 tend across the State line into El Paso County, Texas. The 

 specimens have been collected at altitudes varying from 7,000 

 to 9,000 feet. Mr. Bailey considers it a plant of the Canadian 

 zone. The flowering specimens are dated May 11 and June 1, 

 and the fruiting specimens July 21 and August 5. Dr. Ilavard's 

 ilesignation of this currant as a gooseberry was probably based 

 (•liietly on the paucity of the fruits in the raceme, a character 

 possessed also by Mibes cereum. Although these and other 

 species of the cereurn-viscosissim,um.-sangimieuni group, in some 

 of whicli the racemes are many-flowered, have a well-deflned 

 calyx tube like the gooseberries, none of tliem bear spines or 

 prickles on the branches and they are thus easily separable from 

 the true gooseberries. 



From Ribes cerevm our plant is distinguishable in the her- 

 barium by the stalked character of the glands on the leaves and 

 young twigs, by the relatively broader calyx tube, its ratio of 

 breadth to length being about 1 to 1^ or If, and by its black 

 fruit, llibcs cereum has the glands on its leaves and young 

 twigs almost always sessile, a corolla tube with the ratio of 

 breadth to length about 1 to 2^ or 3^, and a fruit of l)right red 

 color. With iHsrosissimum the new species agrees in the 

 stilked ch.irncter c f the glands on the vegetative parts of the 

 plant, and in the black color of the fruit, but the leaves, flow- 

 ers, and fruit cf inscositisimum are much larger, the flowers being 

 :iboi;.t 1,5 mm. long when the calyx lobes are not reflexed, and 

 the tube al)out 6 mm. broad, while the pedicels are several milli- 

 meters, often 1 cm. or more, in length, and the elliptical-oblong 

 I'niit is commonly 8 to 10 mm. broad by 10 to 12 mm. long. 

 The oblong anthers of HsrosiiHsUnum, commonly 1.5 mm. in 

 length, in all the specimens examined, are exceeded by the free 

 l)()rtion of the filament. Mr. Bailey states that the bushes are 

 tiller than those of ccreiDn, being commonly 4 to G feet high, 

 and do not spread out into the broadly rounded and closely 



