ADDISONIA 47 
(Plate 184) 
GROSSULARIA CURVATA 
Southern Gooseberry 
Native of Georgia and Alabama 
Family GROSSULARIACEAE GOosBBERRY Family 
Ribes curvatum Small, Bull. Torrey Club 23: 295, 6. 
Grossularia curvata Coville & Britton, N. Am. Flora 22: 221. 1908. 
The southern part of the Atlantic prong of the American continent 
as it was sketched out at the ‘‘beginning” is the home of both 
endemic genera and species. Of course, the surface of the land 
has been changed continuously and perhaps it was wholly sub- 
merged after it was first elevated; but the present more or less 
prominent domes of granite that were intruded in this earliest land 
formation and were also exposed at an early period, harbor especially 
peculiar plants. 
The subject of this note is one of the woody plants characteristic 
of the granite areas of the southern end of the Piedmont Plain. 
The unique vegetation of these isolated areas may represent the 
persistent remnants of a very old flora. For, although the vege- 
tation was subjected to the vicissitudes of climate for a very long 
time, the plants there were not subjected to the more violent changes 
resulting from erosion which those in the adjoining regions were and 
are undergoing, and which may have obliterated all their earlier vege- 
tation. For the granite, once bared of the decay of the sedimentary 
strata and other rocks, is slow to be disintegrated and shifted 
through the various meteoric agencies. 
This graceful gooseberry was discovered by the writer of this 
note in the spring of 1905, growing in great abundance on the slopes 
and about the base of Stone Mountain near Atlanta, Georgia. 
Since then it has been introduced into cultivation and distributed 
commercially by nurseries. 
There are about six kinds of native gooseberries in North America 
east of the Mississippi River. Five of these were discovered 
more than a century ago. Although some of them have long been 
cultivated for their fruits and have served as parents for various 
hybrids, none are particularly well adapted for ornamental purposes. 
The present one, however, is an ornamental shrub of the first order 
on account of several characters the other species lack. It thrives 
well in poor or rich soil, is vigorous in growth, and has a peculiar 
