Ill 



THE FLOWERING CURRANTS 

 Ribes 



Ribes sanguineum . . The Flowering Currant 



,, aureum ... The Golden Flowering Currant, or 



Buffalo Currant, or Missouri 

 Currant 

 Ribes laurifolium . . The Laurel-leaved Currant 



speciosum or R. fuch- The Fuchsia Flowering Currant, or 

 sioides Scarlet-flowered Gooseberry 



f ~"^HE Common Flowering Currant, R. sanguin- 

 e^lm, responds with peculiar warmth and vivid- 

 -^- ness to the chilly touch of the earliest spring 

 days. Its winter buds, set five on each long turn of 

 a spiral winding round the copper-coloured stalks, 

 swell rapidly, and out between translucent pink-tinged 

 bracts the pleated leaves begin to push. Sometimes 

 the earliest emerging leaf appears as a tiny folded fan 

 upon a broad thick scale, which scale technically a 

 pair of stipules is fringed with a few simple hairs, 

 and wraps protectingly as an additional coat round the 

 still younger leaves. Maybe the fact that the thrust- 

 ing apart of the bracts deprives the inner leaves 



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