30 GROSSULARIE^ 



The groseille of the French, as well as our own word " gooseberry," has been 

 variously accounted for by etymologists. Some think that the English name 

 was derived from "gorse " and "berry," because of the prickly shrul) on which 

 the fruit grows. Professor Burnett thinks that both the French and English 

 words are corruptions of "grois" or "gross" berry; and Skinner considers 

 that the plant was called gooseberry, because the fruits were used as sauce 

 for the goose, Grerarde calls them Feaberries, and in Norfolk the fruits were 

 called feabes. This author remarks, " The fruit is used in divers sawces for 

 meate ; they are used in broth es instead of verjuyce, which maketh the 

 broth not onely pleasant to the taste, l^ut is greatly profitable to such as are 

 troubled with a hot burning ague." 



* * Flowers in clusters ; branches without thorns. 



2. Red Currant {R. ruhnim). — Clusters drooping; bracts very small; 

 leaves with five blunt lobes. Plant perennial. Several varieties of this 

 plant are found apparently wild, in one of which the flowering clusters are 

 erect, but the fruit is pendulous ; and in another both flowers and fruit are 

 upright ; but in the ordinary form of the plant both flowers and fruit hang 

 drooping from the bough. The shrub, though found growing without culture 

 in many parts of this kingdom, especially in hedges near houses, is hardly 

 to be considered as truly wild, except in the north of England and the High- 

 lands of Scotland. In Dodoens' " History of Plants," translated by Lyte in 

 1578, it is called the red beyond-sea gooseberry ; and in France, one of the 

 modern names for the currant is G-roseille d'outre mer. The French also call 

 currants Ghvseilles en grappes, and the plant is termed in Germany Gemeine 

 Johannisbeere. The old writers classed it with the Gooseberry ; for Gerarde 

 says, "We have also in our London gardens another sort of Gooseberry 

 altogether without prickes, whose fruit is verie small, lesser by much than 

 the common kinde, but of a perfect red colour, wherein it diftereth from the 

 rest of his kinde." Our English name, doubtless, owes its origin to the dried 

 seedless grape of the Levant, which was called currant from Corinth ; for 

 our plant was formerly thought to be the Corinthian grape degenerated. 

 The white and flesh-coloured fruits, so common in gardens, are but varieties 

 of the red species. Their pleasant acid flavour is the consequence of the 

 malic acid found in their juice ; and, mixed with sugar, the fruit is of much 

 value for domestic uses. The berries are refrigerant, and form a wholesome 

 refreshment at that season of the year when juicy fruits are needed to 

 counteract the effects produced on the system by the heat of the atmosphere. 

 Being a hardy shrub, the Currant is valuable to the cottager; and when 

 trained against a wall, and bearing in profusion its ruby clusters, which 

 sparkle among the green leaves, it is as ornamental as it is useful. The red 

 cvirrant, l^esides having many other uses, is of great value for jellies ; and 

 both white and red currants were formerly used in wine, when home-made 

 wines were more general than they now are. The wine is, however, too acid 

 to be very wholesome. This plant was some years since grown to a great 

 extent in Kent, Essex, and Worcestershire, the best-flavoured fruits being 

 produced by plants which were reared in an open situation. It is wild, in 

 more or less abundance, in all the colder countries of Europe, and is 



