DECIDUOUS SHBUBS. 481 



and August. Its fruit-pods are like little bladders, and explode 

 with pressure. A good shrub for the interior of masses of shrubbery. 

 Height twelve to fourteen feet. C. cruenta is a smaller variety, 

 with reddish flowers. C. media is near the size of the first, with 

 orange flowers.^ They require cutting back, to prevent the bottom 

 parts from becoming bare of leaves, unless placed behind masses 

 of lower shrubs. The C. arborescens can, with care, be made into 

 a pretty tree. 



THE FLOWERING CURRANT. Ribes. 



The several varieties of flowering cur- 

 rants are graceful shrubs of slender growth 

 and small leaves ; with less weight of foliage 

 than characterize the lilacs, syringas, and 

 bush-honeysuckles, but so early in leaf and 

 flower, and pleasing in form, that they are 

 apt to grow in favor where well known. 

 There is a grace in the drooping — almost trailing — habit of the 

 lower growth of old bushes when allowed free expansion on all 

 sides, that adapts them for the borders of groups. Height and 

 breadth five to eight feet. 



The Missouri Currant. Ribes aiireum. — This blooms in 

 April, as the leaves are beginning to expand. The blossoms are 

 yellow, small, in racemes from one to two inches long, and fragrant. 

 Covering the slender branches, bending to the lawn, these early 

 flowers mingled with opening leaves have a pretty effect, and the 

 shrubs cover pleasingly with delicate yellowish-green glossy foliage 

 after the flowers are gone. 



The Red-flowering Currant, R. sanguineum, is much more 

 showy in bloom. Its flowers are a deep rose-color, small like the 

 preceding, but the racemes a little longer, and it blooms even 

 earlier. There are many varieties, hybrids between this and the 

 R. aureum. The following is generally considered the finest : * 



Gordon's Flowering Currant, R. Gordoni, has both crimson 

 and yellow flowers ; it blooms profusely, and somewhat later than 

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