138 OTJB COMMON FBTJITS. 



products of the vegetable kingdom to put in a plea of 

 relationship. Yet it is a botanical fact that the plants are 

 closely allied, and the cacta are considered as the tropical 

 representatives of the grossularice of cold climates. Care- 

 ful inspection will show many points of similarity, for 

 though the gooseberry has leaves and the cactus has none, 

 consisting entirely of succulent stems, the former shoots 

 forth many appendages, which are affirmed to be foliage 

 in a state of abortion, and therefore tending to disappear- 

 ance ; the " very sharpe, cruell, crooked (?) thorns, which 

 no man's hand can well avoid that doth handle them," 

 spoken of thus plaintively by an old botanist, being now 

 looked on as mere mid-ribs without any expansion of fleshy 

 substance to form them into leaves, and which therefore 

 harden into mere prickly spines. The ovary, too, swelling 

 as it does directly out of the stalk, is another feature in 

 common, and in the matured fruit the resemblance is far 

 more obvious ; indeed, so much so, that one species of 

 cactus bears the name of the West Indian Grooseberry. 

 An ornamental species of grossularia, a native of Califor- 

 nia and the west coast of America, introduced here in 

 1829, and now not uncommon, shows a taste more in 

 affinity with its gaily dressing tropical relatives, by as- 

 suming a rich robe of crimson, the calyx of the blossom 

 being large and highly coloured like a fuchsia, making it 

 a very desirable acquisition in the flower-garden. In 

 Siberia are several species ofltibes which have the prickles 

 of the gooseberry, yet bear fruit resembling currants, being, 

 indeed, the connecting link between the two. These are 

 not easy for a botanist to class, for the presence or ab- 

 sence of prickles is the one feature by which the plants 

 are commonly distinguished from each other, it being a 

 singular fact, considering how different are the respective 

 fruits into which the blossoms develope, that the organs of 

 fructification are so similar as to offer nothing on which 

 a distinction of genera can be founded. The currant has 

 more numerous blossoms, it is true, but the gooseberry 

 produces several in a group, one or two mostly proving 

 abortive, and in each case they are arranged on a common 

 stalk, each with its appended bract, while the flowers are 



