CURRANTS AND GOOSEBERRIES 191 



typical. The Macrocarpum currants are more tender to cold 

 than the garden sorts belonging to R. sativum. 



278. Habitat and history of the Sativum currant.— i^/5es 

 sativum is a native of western Europe, being wild in Great 

 Britain, France, and Belgium. It is a fruit of cold and tem- 

 perate regions, and its cultivation was not attempted in the 

 warmer parts of Europe; therefore, the species was not do- 

 mesticated until agriculture was well advanced in northern and 

 vrestern Europe. Its cultivation was no doubt begun in the 

 fourteenth or fifteenth century; at least it is mentioned as a 

 commonly cultivated fruit in the garden books of the sixteenth 

 century and not previously as a garden plant. This currant was 

 brought to America by the earliest settlers in New England. 



279. Ribes rubrum described. — This is the northern red cur- 

 rant, and while it is not always easy to distinguish it from the 

 preceding species, there is but little difficulty in separating most 

 of the varieties from those of R. sativum. 



2. Bihes rubrum, Linn. Upright shrub attaining a height of 6 feet; 

 young growth more pubescent than in E. sativum. Leaves rarely subcordate, 

 3-5 lobed, usually tomentose beneath; smaller and thicker than those of 

 B. sativum and held more laxly, 3-4 inches across. Flowers greenish or 

 brownish, in spreading racemes, borne on rather stiff short pedicels on one 

 side of the bunch, whereas those of sativum swing freely around the bunch ; 

 held out at right angles from the stem, those of B. sativum being pendulous; 

 calyx-tube more bell-shaped than in B. sativum and without the ring inside. 

 Fruit usually red. 



Botanists describe several botanical varieties of which var. 

 puhescens, Schwarz, and var. scandicum, Hedl. are given as 

 progenitors of cultivated varieties. Several natural hybrids 

 between this and the preceding species are named, and from it 

 come most of the small-fruited hardy garden varieties, either as 

 pure-breds or as hybrids with the two other species under 

 cultivation. 



280. Habitat and history of the Rubrum currants.— This 

 species is native of central and northern Europe and Asia east- 

 ward into Siberia and ^lanchuria. How, where, and by whom 

 the species was domesticated is not known. It is rather less 

 promising in the wild than R. sativum; there are fewer varieties 

 showing its blood; and since it is not found in regions which 

 came so early under agriculture as those in which R. sativum 



