324 RIBES. [CLASS V. ORDER I. 



GENUS XXXIX. RI'BES.— Linn. Currant and Gooseberry. 



Xat. Ord. Grossdlari'e^. De Cand. 



Gen. Char. Calyx of four or five segments, regular, and bearing the 

 petals and stamens. Style from two to four-cleft. Fruit a single 

 celled, many seeded berry. — Name: " Ribes was a word applied 

 by the Arabic physicians to a species of Rhubarb, Rheum Ribes. 

 Our older Botanists believed that it was our Gooseberry; and 

 hence Bauhin called that plant Ribes acidumJ^ — Hooker. 

 * Without Thorns. Flowers racemose. Currants. 



1. J?, rubrum, Linn. (Fig. 393) common red Currant. Racemes 

 smooth, pendulous both in flower and fruit; calyx cup-shaped, almost 

 flat ; petals small, spatulate, or notched. 



English Botany, t. 1289. — English Flora, vol. i. p. 331. — Hooker, 

 British Flora, vol. i. p. 122. — Lindley, Synopsis, p. 106. 



A bushy erect shrub, with a smooth cuticle that cracks and curls up 

 as the plant increases. Leaves alternate, on longish smooth or fringed 

 footstalks, five lobed, and doubly seiTated, paler beneath, and with pro- 

 minent ribs and veins, smooth, or slightly hairy, especially beneath. 

 Inflorescence racemes of numerous flowers, pendent from the axis of 

 the leaves. Floiuers small, pale gi'een, each on a short partial foot- 

 stalk, arising from the axis of a small ovate bractea, which soon falls 

 away, and frequently beneath the flower there are one or two small 

 ones. Calyx somewhat cup-shaped, but almost flat, the limb of five 

 acute segments. Petals small, alternating with the segments of the 

 calyx, and fixed into its tube, spatulate, obtuse, or slightly notched. 

 Stamens on short filaments, opposite the segments of the calyx. 

 Anthers of two separate lobes, two celled, bursting longtitudinally. 

 Style short. Stigmas two, spreading. Berry globular, smooth, red, 

 and shining, crowned by the withered persistent flower, of one cell. 

 Seeds numerous, attached by one end to the parietal placenta by a 

 slender cord, and suspended amongst the pulp ; the external integu- 

 ment of the seed is gelatinous, the internal membranous. Em- 

 bryo minute. 



Habitat. — Alpine woods in the North of England and Scotland ; 

 and not unfrequent in hedges in various parts of the country, and 

 Ireland, but not wild in such situations. 



Shrub ; flowering in May. 



The red currant is a well known cultivated garden shrub, producing 

 red, pink, and white berries, the two latter being only varieties of the 

 former, and are esteemed more as a dessert fruit than as applied to so 

 many domestic purposes as the red currants, which contain more abun- 



