THE GOOSEBERRY FAMILY. 227 



filaments, hairy. Pistil : one. Bcr/y : large ; globose, containing many seeds 

 and showmg at its summit the persistent calyx and remnants of the stamens. 

 Leaves : with long, pubescent petioles and grcnving in clusters along the rounded 

 branches ; palmatcty hve-lobcd ; toothed ; bright green and lustrous at maturity. 

 A low branching shrub with slender, recurved spines about one-rpKu tcr of an inch 

 long ; glabrous. 



Not until 1895 was this gooseberry described by Dr. Small, and it there- 

 fore is comparatively a new species. In rocky woods it thrives best, two of 

 its known haunts being the slopes of Stone Mountain, in Georgia, and Sand 

 Mountain in Alabama. With its highly coloured twigs, and bark which ex- 

 foliates in papery, thin sheets it is perhaps more attractive in the autumn than 

 at any other season of the year. 



R. rotundifblium, eastern wild gooseberry, is indigenous along the moun- 

 tains from North Carolina to Western Massachusetts. Its sepals are not 

 coloured white as are those of the drooping gooseberry, but are greenish 

 and tinged with purple, while the lobes of its corolla are possibly less scale- 

 like and more showy. The broadly orbicular leaves are lobed and toothed 

 and when mature, smooth and glossy. The berries are small. It is not a 

 very thorny plant, frequently none at all being seen, or else but a few which 

 are short and straight. 



R. Cynosbati, wild gooseberry or dogberry, can be easily distinguished 

 from all others by its prickly fruit. It is, in fact, the one that children know 

 and abundantly gather in woods of the mountainous districts. Often pro- 

 truding from fissures of the great rocks on Grandfather Mountain we saw, 

 one September, its shapely palmately lobed and toothed leaves and very 

 prickly stem. They had then turned to an intense wine colour. 



R. prostratum^ fetid currant, bears light red fruit, which is glandular 

 bristly. It may further be known by its racemes of numerous flowers and 

 the very disagreeable odour it exhales. To those that have climbed the 

 mountain summits it is undoubtedly familiar and through our range is only 

 to be found in such places. 



THE WITCH=HAZEL FAMILY. 



Ha ma luclidacccc. 



A group of trees and shrubs with simple, alternate pctioled leaves, 

 andfloivers which grow in different forms of clusters^ being perfect^ or 

 imperfect. Perianth^ sometimes wanting. Fruit ■• a woody capsule. 



