256 THE SMALL FRUITS OF NEW YORK 



BB. Branches with bristles and nodal spines; flowers rotate in drooping racemes, 



glandular Gooseberry-stemmed Currants: VI. Grossulariaides 



AA. Flowers unisexual and each sex on a different plant (dioecious) 



B. Racemes erect Alpine Currants : VII. Berisia 



BB. Racemes pendulous Andine Currants: VIII. Parilla 



About 125 species of currants are known. Most of them are natives 

 of the temperate and cooler regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Northern 

 Asia and Europe possess a large number of them, but by far the greatest 

 number inhabit America. The mountains of the Pacific Coast from Alaska 

 to Patagonia are especially rich in species. Most of these western and 

 southern American Ribes are ornamental, sometimes evergreen and deli- 

 cate shrubs. None have so far proved to possess any value from the 

 pomological point of view, nevertheless some might be profitably used in 

 hybridizing. With a few exceptions, the currants ctdtivated for their 

 fruits are natives of the Old World, particularly of Europe, from the 

 Pyrenees to Scandinavia. No species enters the tropics in the Old World 

 on account of the mountain chains stretching from east to west and causing 

 sharp climatic separations. 



Subgenus I. Ribesia Berlandier. Janczewski Monogr. in Man. Soc. Phys. et d'Hist. 

 Nat. de Gentve 35:Pt. 3, 235. 1902. 



Red Currants. — Unarmed shrubs, young shoots with thin papery outer bark soon 

 peeling off. Buds middle sized, scales leathery. 



Leaves plicate in bud, more or less maple-shaped, 3- to 5- to 7-lobed, with as many 

 palmately branched veins, lobes mostly pointed; the base cordate or truncate; more or less 

 pubescent, at least when young or entirely glabrous; glands, when present on the young 

 growth, small, crj^stalline, not viscid, inodorous. 



Inflorescence racemose ; rhachis slender, pedicels from the axils of small bracts, articu- 

 lated below the flower; bracteoles small or wanting. 



Flowers with a rotate, pelviform (shallowly cup-shaped), turbinate or campanulate 

 receptacle, modestly colored, mostly greenish, yellow to reddish or dark. The bottom 

 of the receptacle concave or flat or with a disc-like, peculiar, somewhat pentangular rim 

 or with 5 roundish humps below the petals. Calyx-lobes or sepals roundish, often broader 

 than long, patent or rectu-ved. Petals small cuneiform or flabelliform, usually a little 

 brighter colored. Stamens inserted opposite the sepals, filaments short, anthers sometimes 

 with an exceptionally broad connective. Style more or less deeply bifid. Ovary inferior 

 or semi-inferior, roundish or turbinate, smooth. 



Fruits mostly globular or oblong- rotmdish, mostly red, sometimes uncolored or white, 

 or dark purple, crowned by the remains of the withered flower; mostly acidulous or insipid; 

 seeds ovoid, numerous. 



This subgenus comprises 15 more or less closely rel'ated species, natives 

 of the Northern Hemisphere, out of which the following constitute our culti- 

 vated red currants. 



