GROSSULAIIIACE.E. 39 



Leaves appearing' with tlic flowers, stalked, 3 to 5 in each fascicle ; 

 lamina 1 to 2 inches across, commonly hairy, especially below. 

 Elowers J inch long- and nearly as much across, green tinged with 

 brownish-red. Petals greenish-white, very inconspicuous. Stamens 

 erect, longer or shorter than the petals. Style 2-cleft or 2-partite. 

 Bracts variable in number and situation. Peduncles and calyx-tube 

 downy. The fruit of the wild plant I have not seen, but it is said 

 to be considerably smaller than that of the garden gooseberry. 



Vars. a and 3 seem scarcely distinguishable ; the small-leaved 

 form /3 appears to be the niost abundant in the wild or sub-spon- 

 taneous state. 



Gooselerrij. 



French, Groseille ct Maquereau. German, Stachelhcere. 



The Gooseberry-bush is one of the most common of our native garden plants, and 

 has all sorts of local names. In Lancashire and Cheshire it is called feverberry or fea- 

 berry ; in Norfolk this is shortened to feabes or fapes, as they pronounce it ; and in Scot- 

 land it is called gi'oser, groset, or carberry. The origin of the name Gooseberry is obscure, 

 and much disputed. Dr. Prior, who has paid great attention to this branch of inquiry, 

 and whom we cannot do better than quote, says : " It seems to have come to us through 

 the French groseille, corrupted to gozel ; and this word groseille, from the German 

 krailselbeere, frizzleberry, a name that seems absurd enough when applied to the 

 Gooseberry, and one that could only have arisen from that common source of blunders 

 in the popular names of plants, the mistranslation of a foreign word. The origin of it 

 is clearly the Dutch hruisbezie, crossberry, from the triple spine assuming the form of 

 a cross, and which has been mistaken for kroesbezie, frizzleberry, and so translated into 

 German and herbalist Latin. In Matthioli, however, Ed. Frankf. 1586, it is given 

 correctly creutzbeer. Groseille has been usually derived through grossularia, from 

 grossida, dim. of Latin grossus, a small miniature fig. But as the fruit was unknown 

 to the ancients in its cultivated state, and, like so many other productions of the 

 garden, was introduced by the Netherlanders, it is to the language of these lattef that 

 we should refer for its name. The derivation of it given in some popular works of 

 reference, from gost, a furze-bush — probably a misspelling of the MS. for gorst — and 

 that of Patrick Blair and some other herbalists, who say that it was called so ' because 

 when the green geese begin to be eatable it is frequently used as a sauce to them,' is 

 undeserving of any serious attention." 



The northern parts of England are especially favourable to the cultivation of the 

 Gooseberry-bush, and it is usually from the districts of Lancashire and Cheshire that we 

 hear of those enormous Gooseberries which are sent to fruit-shows, and astonish by their 

 size rather than their flavour. It is in Lancashire, however, that Gooseberries are brought 

 to their greatest perfection, and it is from stocks there nurtured that the finest varieties 

 are produced. On the Continent, in France and Germany, the Gooseberry is compara- 

 tively little known, and poorly estimated. When foreigners see our Lancashire Goose- 

 berries, they are inclined to regard them as a different fruit from their own diminutive 

 specimens at home. Happily this useful and wholesome fruit is to be found in every 

 cottage garden in Britain, and it is most desirable to encourage the introduction of its 

 most useful varieties in every little enclosure. In the neighbourhood of Manchester 

 prizes are given for the finest Gooseberries, which are brought to what are called the 



