519 



I have long remarked that in every individual specimen of the wild 

 currant seen in flower, the blossoms were invariably more or less 

 streaked, dotted or suffused with a purplish brown or russet red co- 

 lour, and remarkably so on the perigynous glandular disk of the ca- 

 lyx, from which that tinge is never entirely absent, whereas in the 

 garden red currant the flowers are of an uniform pale green, without 

 any such mixture of red. Some other differences between them will 

 be noticed presently. Our Vectian, and I think also the Sussex plant, 

 is, in fact, the R. rubrum, /3. sylvestre of Mertens and Koch,* whilst 

 the figure in ' English Botany ' represents that form which we find in 

 cultivation, but which I have never seen wild, or even naturalized 

 here. I am far from believing that the two are anything more than 

 varieties of the same species, and that but slight ones ; nevertheless, 

 where a marked difference is uniformly stamped on the aspect of the 

 one which is not found to be possessed by the other, good grounds 

 are afforded for supposing them to be derived, in distinct collateral 

 lines, from some common but remote ancestor. 



I shall now proceed to state the differences observable betwixt the 

 wild, or as it may be called, the primary f form of R. rubrum, and the 

 state of the species as exhibited in cultivation, or the garden form of 

 the plant, premising that I do not wish to lay much stress upon cha- 

 ractei'S taken from cultivated examples of a species, although, as the 

 same characters, with some trifling variations have been remarked by 

 many and distantly situated observers, it is fair to assume the existence 

 of two tolerably definite races; one, of a type unknown in cultivation, 

 and hence aboriginal with us, which is the point sought to be esta- 

 blished. 



1. Ribes rubrum, a. sylvestre. Lam. 



Mertens and Koch in Rohling's Deutchl. Fl. ii. p. 249. Koch, Syn. 

 1st edit. p. 265. Wimmer and Grab. Fl. Siles. i. p. 209. Reichenb. 

 Fl. Excurs. Germ. ii. p. 562. Peterman, Fl. Lips. Excurs. p. 197. Fl. 

 Dan. t. 957. Merr. Pin. p. 104 ? Dill, in Ray Syn. ii. p. 456 ? 



Smaller in its leaves and flowers than the next form ; stamens ex- 

 tremely short, erect, filaments shorter than the breadth of the anther, 

 whose lobes do not rise above the very broad connectivum, and with 

 the filaments resemble in shape the head or handle of a crutch. Caly- 

 cine disk and other parts of the flower tinged with brown or purple ; 

 young leaves much more downy, grayer, and not at all shining be- 

 neath. Fruit small, palish red. 



* Deutchland's Flora (Rohling's), vol. ii. p. 249. 

 t Peterman, Fl. Lips. Excurs. p. 197. 



