204 SAXIFRAGACEiE. Ribes. 



In the Coast Ranges, from Monterey to Mendocino comities, mostly under Redwoods. Flowers 

 fragrant. Divisions of the capsule only a line long. 



13. RIBES, Linn. Currant. Gooseberry. 



Calyx with tube adnate to the globose ovary and more or less extended beyond 

 it ; the limb 5-cleft or rarely 4-cleft, and commonly colored or petaloid. Petals 

 erect, mostly smaller than the calyx-lobes, inserted in the sinuses. Stamens as 

 many as the petals and alternate with them : anthers commonly very short. Ovary 

 1-celled, with 2 parietal placentas: styles 2, or more or less united into one: stigmas 

 terminal. Berry crowned more or less by the withered remains of the flower, many- 

 seeded, rarely rather few-seeded. Seeds with a gelatinous outer and a crustaceous 

 inner coat. Embryo minute in firm albumen. — Shrubs, often resinous-glandular 

 or viscid ; with alternate (often fascicled) palmately veined and lobed leaves ; stip- 

 ules wanting or adnate to the petiole, and peduncles one-flowered or racemosely 

 2 - many-flowered, mostly terminating short and 1 - 2-leaved axillary shoots; pedi- 

 cels subtended by a bract, and usually bearing a pair of bractlets. Placentas and 

 styles occasionally 3 or 4. 



A rather large genus of the northern temperate zone, with a few species extending down the 

 Andes. North America is rich in species, and only in California are all the sections of the genus 

 represented. The thorns under the fascicles in the first two sections answer to leaves, as in the 

 Barberry. 



§ 1. Thorny: parts of the flower more common/.?/ 4 : calyx turgid at base; the narrow 

 lobes erect : stamens long-exserted : ovules and seeds rather few : otherwise as 

 in the following section. — Robsonia, Berlandier. 



1. R. speciosum, Pursh. Tall, the trunk sometimes as thick as a man's arm, 

 and attaining G to 10 feet in height : branches bristly-prickly and armed with large 

 triple thorns under the fascicles: leaves small, coriaceous, nearly evergreen, glabrous 

 or almost so, roundish or cuneiform and slightly 3 - 5-lobed : flowers 2 to 5 on the 

 bristly-glandular peduncle, drooping, cylindraceous, bright red, almost an inch long 

 and the stamens as much longer : anthers very short : berry dry, densely glandular- 

 bristly. — -Bot. Pieg. t. 1557; Bot. Mag. t. 3530. R. stamineum, Smith. 



Woods and ravines, Bay of Monterey to San Diego. Remarkable and prized in cultivation for 

 its showy Fuchsia-like blossoms. Calyx-lobes erect. 



§ 2. Mostly thorny under the fascicles, and sometimes (but variably) scattered-prickly 

 or bristly along the branches : leaves plaited in the bud : peduncle (except in 

 the last) only 1 - 4-flmvered : calyx mostly recurved, or reflexed at flowering- 

 time, afterwards erect : berry many-seeded. — Grossularia, A. Richard. 

 (Grossularia, Dill. Gooseberry.) 



* Calyx-tube campanulate to cylindraceous : peduncle 1 - 4-floivered. 



+- Anthers sagittate, nuicronate-tipped : berry prickly, large and rather dry. 



2. R. Menziesii, Pursh. Shrub 2 to 6 feet high, with naked, glandular-bristly 

 or more prickly branches and stout usually triple thorns under the fascicles : leaves 

 pubescent or sometimes glabrous (from a half to one and a half inches in diameter), 

 roundish or round-cordate, 3 - 5-lobed ; the lobes crenately toothed and incised : 

 peduncles 1 - 2-flowered : calyx about half an inch long, purplish-red ; its oblong 

 lobes spreading or recurved in anthesis, elongated-oblong, more or less longer than 

 the somewhat funnelform tube, hardly longer than the stamens, which surpass the 

 whitish petals : berry 4 to 6 lines in diameter, besides the prickles, which generally 

 thickly cover it, and are either short or long, usually straw-colored, sometimes 



