50 Tratisactions of the Horticultural Society, 



perry made from small cracked and spotted fruit, if a fine 

 autumn succeeds a cold showery summer, is always of better 

 quality than after a hot summer when the fruit is larger, and, 

 as it regards appearance, better ripened. I have in no instance, 

 after artificial impregnation of apple blossoms with the pollen 

 of others, ever obtained any resemblance in form or colour 

 to the apple I took the pollen from ; and 1 have, on the average 

 of the last 16 years, artificially impregnated 20 to 30 blossoms 

 each. I have given the pollen of the Alexander apple to 

 Golden Pippin flowers and Siberian, and vice versa ; but in 

 no instance did the Golden Pippin or Siberian fruit become 

 enlarged, or the Alexander apple, from the reversed process, 

 become diminished in size." 



54'. An Account of some new and little known Species of the Genus 

 Ribes. By Mr. David Douglas, F.L.S. Read April 21. 1829. 



Many species of Rlbes are indigenous both to North and 

 South America, and in their native state produce excellent 

 fruit, but scarcely any w^hen removed to another climate. 



Few shrubs are more ornamental than Rihes sanguineum ; 

 but its fruit in a natural state is of so very musky and unplea- 

 sant a flavour, that even the birds do not use it. The plant 

 forms an erect branching bush, 6 ft. in height, with red smooth 

 branches, leaves very like those of the black currant, but 

 rather smaller, and showy pink or crimson flowers, succeeded 

 by black berries. Its native habitat is in rocky situations, or on 

 the shingly shores of streams in partially shaded places, never 

 extending beyond the influence of the sea-breeze, and from 

 38° to 40°, and as high as 52° N. lat. on the coast of North- 

 west America, It was discovered by Archibald Menzies, 

 Esq., so long ago as 1787, during his first voyage round the 

 world, but only introduced by Mr. Douglas to the Horticul- 

 tural Society in 1826; and the plants raised from seed blos- 

 somed for the first time in April, 1828. This is a truly 

 beautiful shrub, of the easiest possible culture and propaga- 

 tion. Blossoming early, and its flowers being so very showy, 

 it ought to be in every shrubbery. 



H. viscosissimum Pursh. A large branching bush, 6 to 

 8 ft. high, with perfectly smooth dark-red bark. Faint yel- 

 low or whitish flowers, and dark brown or black berries. 



" It is an inhabitant only of the subalpine range of the 

 highest mountains, abounding in dry fissures of limestone 

 rocks, flowering in May, and ripening its fruit in August. On 

 the hills around the Kettle Falls on the Columbia River, in 

 48° 37' 40" N. latitude, 118° W. longitude, at an elevation of 

 8000 ft. above the level of the sea, it forms a principal part 

 of the brushwood, and is equally plentiful on the western de- 



