HARPERS GUIDE TO WILD FLOWERS 



Prickly Gooseberry. Dogberry 



Ribes Cynosbati Family, Saxifrage. Color, green. Calyx, 



tubular, clinging to ovary, with 4 or 5 lobes above. Petals, 5, 

 springing from the throat of the calyx, so small as scarcely to be 

 noticeable. 5 stamens alternate with petals. Ovary, 1 -celled, 

 becoming in fruit a round, rather large berry covered with prickles 

 and tipped with the remains of the shriveled calyx. Flowers, 1 to 

 3, on long peduncles. Leaves, nearly round, 1 to 2 inches broad, 

 3 to 5-lobed, the lobes cut or toothed. Stems, with numerous, 

 rather weak, slender spines at base of the leaf-stalks. May. 



In rocky woods, Maine to North Carolina, especially among 

 the Alleghanies, west to Missouri. Found 5,000 feet high in 

 North Carolina. 



Smooth Gooseberry. Hawthorn Gooseberry 



R. oxyacanthoides — Color, greenish yellow, sometimes with a 

 purplish tinge. Flowers, 1 to 3, with short pedicels, on long 

 peduncles. Fruit, a small, purple, edible berry. Leaves, thin, 

 deeply cleft, heart-shape, serrate, the petioles sprinkled with naked 

 glands. A few solitary, whitish spines grow on the stem. A species 

 sometimes found in gardens, but not much improved by cultivation. 



The finest gooseberries are raised in the gardens of the 

 operatives of the factories in Lancashire, England. There 

 the berries are sometimes 2 inches in diameter. In Scotland, 

 also, the fruit is large and delicious. It is eaten, when ripe, 

 uncooked, and considered one of the most desirable of fruits. 

 Our climate, with its extreme summer heat, is not favorable 

 to the best development of the gooseberry, which requires 

 coolness and dampness. 



Swamp Black Currant. Swamp Gooseberry 



R. lacusire. — Color, green. Petals, 5, small, flat, spreading. 

 Fruit, a small, black, bristly berry not agreeable to the taste. 

 Flowers, 4 to 9, small, in racemes, on bracted pedicels. Leaves, 

 thin, downy along veins, 5 to 7-lobed, the lobes toothed or cut. 

 Whole stem and branches covered densely with weak bristles 

 and larger thorns. May and June. 



Found in cold woods, in swamps, in New England, New 

 York, westward to Michigan. Neither a gooseberry nor a 

 currant, but partaking of the characteristics of both. 



Wild Black Currant 



R. fforidum. — Color, whitish or greenish or yellowish white. 

 Flowers, large, showy, abundant, in racemes with long pedicels. 



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