254 '^^^ SMALL FRUITS OF NEW YORK 



CHAPTER IX 



THE SYSTEMATIC BOTANY OF CURRANTS AND 

 GOOSEBERRIES 



Several species each of Ribes and Grossularia are commonly cultivated 

 in cool temperate and even sub-arctic climates under the names currants and 

 gooseberries. The two genera are put by many botanists in a subtribe of 

 the family Saxifragaceae, while others find them sufficiently different from 

 other saxifrage-like plants to put them in a distinct family, Grossulariaceae, 

 a procedure followed in this text. While species of the two genera are 

 very different in aspect of plant, and in appearance and flavor of fruit, 

 yet their close relationship is shown by similarities in botanical characters 

 and by the hybridization of species in the two genera and the possibility 

 of intergrafting. The two genera possess the following characters in 

 common : — 



They are shrubs of various habit, usually flowering from the old wood 

 and sending up every year a number of young cions to replace the older 

 decaying stems. On young branches the bark usually peels, and some 

 species bear bristles along the intemodes or spines at the nodes or below 

 the insertion of the leaves. The leaves are alternate or spirally arranged 

 on the longer branches, or clustered on the short lateral branchlets; they are 

 stalked, without stipules, simple and more or less lobed and toothed. 



The flowers are produced in racemes from the end of short lateral 

 branchlets, usually at the time of the leaves unfolding in spring. Sometimes 

 the racemes are short and even reduced to one flower (Grossularia). In 

 Ribes the flowers are more numerous, from 6-20 or more in a raceme. 

 Each pedicel is subtended by a small bract, and often two much smaller 

 bractlets are seen below the ovary. 



The ovary is inferior, i -celled, with two parietal placentas and with 

 several or numerous ovules. The cal)TC-tube or receptacle varies from 

 flat to cup-shaped, urn-shaped to tubular, it has 5, rarely 4, segments or 

 sepals and as many petals inserted alternately at the top of the receptacle. 

 The stamens, equal in number, are inserted opposite the sepals. The 

 style is more or less deeply cleft, often halfway down, into 2, rarely 3, 

 lobes or branches. 



The fruits are i -celled pulpy berries, with several or many horizontal 

 angular seeds; embryo minute, terete, embedded in the fleshy endosperm. 



