72 



covered with a brown, viscid, scentless, glutinous substance, 

 which, when exposed to the sun, acquires a rough, hardened, 

 waxy, warty, sppearance. The leaves are nearly round, bluntly 

 three-lobed, crenate, scarce!)^ an inch long, of a leathery texture, 

 and almost veinless, clothed on the upper surface with white 

 and (in dry weather) hardened waxy minute granulations, quite 

 smooth below; footstalks somewhat longer than the leaves. 

 The clusters are dense, of the same length as the leaves, three 

 or five flowered, slightly pubescent, hanging in great profusion 

 below the branches, with scarcely any partial footstalks; bracteas 

 wedge-shaped, glandular and toothed at the apex. The calyx 

 is tubular, imperfectly four-sided, v/hite, pink at the base, three- 

 fourths of an inch long, with rounded, short, reflected segments, 

 double the length of the minute, somewhat kidney-shaped pet- 

 als. Filaments same length as the petals; style slightly cloven. 

 Berry spherical, small, red and glossy, thin skinned, rarely con- 

 taining more than three large seeds, and a great quantity of in- 

 sipid, viscid, red juice. 



On dry exposed decayed granite rocks or schist, throughout 

 the chain of the river Columbia from the great falls 45 degrees, 

 46 minutes, 17 seconds N. Lat. to the sources of that stream in 

 the Rocky mountains 52 degrees, 07 minutes, 09 seconds. This 

 is a common shrub, flowering in March and April, and ripening 

 its fruit in June. 



The above description is taken from the Transactions of the Horticultural 

 Society, volume 7, page 512. 1830, and although according to the date is not the 

 original one, is probably more complete, being by Douglas himself. This spe- 

 cies, or probably aggregate of several species, is widely diffused, occurring 

 throughout the entire Rocky Mountain system, and through the Sierras of Cal- 

 ifornia, crossing from thence by way of the Tehachapi into the high mountains 

 of Ventura county in the southern Coast Range. 



5. Ribes viscosissimuin Pursh, Fl. Am. Sept. 1: 163. 

 1814. 

 R. inerme; omnibus partibus pilis viscidis tectum; foliis 

 cordatis obtuse trilobis serratis, racemis erectis brevibus, calyci- 



