PLANTS CULTIVATED FOR THEIR FRUITS. 277 



often near gardens, has suggested to some English 

 botanists the idea of an accidental naturalization. This 

 is likely enough in Ireland ; x but as it is an essentially 

 European species, I do not see why it should not have 

 existed in England, where the wild plant is more common, 

 since the establishment of most of the species of the 

 British flora ; that is to say, since the end of the glacial 

 period, before the separation of the island from the 

 continent. Phillips quotes an old English n&mQ,feaberry 

 or feabes, which supports the theory of an ancient exist- 

 ence, and two Welsh names, 2 of which I cannot, however, 

 certify the originality. 



Bed Currant Ribes rubrum, Linnseus. 



The common red currant is wild throughout Northern 

 and Temperate Europe, and in Siberia 8 as far as Kamts- 

 chatka, and in America, from Canada and Vermont to 

 the mouth of the river Mackenzie. 4 



Like the preceding species, it was unknown to the 

 Greeks and Romans, and its cultivation was only intro- 

 duced in the Middle Ages. The cultivated plant hardly 

 differs from the wild one. That the plant was foreign 

 to the south of Europe is shown by the name of groseillier 

 d'outremer (currant from beyond the sea), given in France 5 

 in the sixteenth century. In Geneva the currant is still 

 commonly called raisin de mare, and in the canton of 

 Soleure meertriibli. I do not know why the species was 

 supposed, three centuries ago, to have come from be- 

 yond seas. Perhaps this should be understood to mean 

 that it was brought by the Danes and the Northmen, 

 and that these peoples from beyond the northern seas 

 introduced its cultivation. I doubt it, however, for the 

 Ribes rubrum is wild in almost the whole of Great 

 Britain 6 and in Normandy; 7 the English, who were in 

 constant communication with the Danes, did not cultivate 

 it as late as 1557, from a list of the fruits of that epoch 



Moore and More, Contrib. to the Cybele Hybernica, p. 113. 



Davies, Welsh Botanology, p. 24. 



Ledebour, Fl. Ross., ii. p. 199. 



Torrey and Gray, FL N. Amer., i. p. 150. * Dodoneus, p. 748. 



Watson, Cybele Brit. 



Brebisson, Flore de Normandie, p. 99. 



