MISSOURI GOOSEBERRY 



Ribes missouriense Nutt. 



April It is late March. The little stream through the woods is nm- 



Woods ning freely again and the woods-earth is dark and porous 

 after the departure of the snows. The fox sparrows utter 

 throaty flute-notes and ripple-songs, like the sounds of water ninning 

 under ice. The juncos are tinkling their snuill songs which mean that 

 it is almost time for juncos and fox sparrows to head north to nest. A 

 hermit thrush, also on its way to northern spruce forests, hops among 

 last year's dead leaves where a scarlet cup mushroom gleams forth like 

 a tanager's feather. On a south slope the spring beauties have opened a 

 few pale flowers, but the great burst of early spring bloom is not yet here. 



But the look of spring is all through the hilly woods. The wild 

 gooseberry l)ushes are in leaf. They are smooth, rounded mounds of pale 

 green and the leaves are still so young they are folded and pleated, deli- 

 cate and soft, pretty as flowers and with a ])ervasive fragrance whicli is 

 everywhere in these woods. 



A month later the gooseberry bushes liavc full-grown leaves and the 

 flowers are in bloom. The scent of gooseberry blossoms is even sti'onger 

 through the woods than it was when the leaves were perfumed. Now the 

 llowers hang in small clusters all over the bushes, spring from the axils 

 of the leaves and the new green stems. The llowers are almost fuclisia- 

 like in shape, pale green and white, with tightly recurved sepals of the 

 bell-shaped calyx and a tight, bell-sha})ed corolla inside. From this ex- 

 tend the dramatically long, tight group of white stamens and the pistil. 

 It is indeed a dramatic little flower — small, but so delicately exaggerated 

 that in its waxen perfection it is among the most beautiful in the spring- 

 time woods, 



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