Ribes.] GBOssuLACE^. 189 



small copse or patch of wood between Stonewell or Stoneover and Churchills 

 farms, about due S. from Ningwood green. Plentifully in the first wood along 

 the shore at Yarmouth, immediately under Bouldner. Becomes rarer in the very 

 open and level south-western quarter of the island. 



y. In the High wood at Swainston, abundantly, 1846. 



Root mostly much branched, sumetimes nearly simple, blackish brown, and 

 often creeping considerably and throwing up fresh stems at some distance from 

 the original plant. Stem about 2 or 3 feet high, the centre filled with a spongy 

 pith, seldom much branched in the wild state, often quite simple, sometimes how- 

 ever appearing as an irregular -straggling bush, ramified usually from the base, and 

 dividing into a few distant, unequal, straight and upright branches, the older 

 covered with a dark, reddish brown, very smooth cuticle, that on the younger 

 wood cinereous. Leaves much like those of the vine in shape and texture, but 

 smaller, roundish, 3- or 6-lol)ed and angled, the basal lobes mostly obscure, the 

 middle lobe shorter and less acute than in R. nigrum ; cordate at base, lit;ht green 

 above, paler and when young mostly very downy beneath, plicato-rugose, acutely 

 and unequally incised, serrate, the sen'atures tipped wilh a gland, destitute of 

 scent from the want of resinous glands, as in the black Currant. Petioles semi- 

 terete, channelled above, pubescent, membranously winged and often fringed with 

 a few remote hairs and stalked glands below. Racemes lax or nodding (some- 

 times erect in flower, the R. petrasum of Smith), finally drooping or pendulous, 

 solitary from the bosom of the leafy fascicles, about 1^ or 2 inches long, many- 

 flowered, glabrous or a little downy, with here and there an extremely minute 

 reddish and stalked gland. Flowers about 3 Jines in diameter, whitish green, but 

 in the wild variety we are now describing always more or less dotted, streaked or 

 suffused with a purplish brown colour observable on every part, but most con- 

 stantly on the disk, from which it is seldom absent. Pedicels patent, 2 or 3 times 

 as long as the broadly ovate, concave, loosely clasping bract at its base, besides 

 which there is an occasional pair of bracts nearer the flower. Calyx basin-shaped, 

 glabrous, wilh a wide limb, cleft into 5 segments of an obcordate or somewhat 

 fan-shaped form, much broader than long, finally revolute at the apex. Petals 

 very minute, springing from the margin of the fleshy disk between the calyx-seg- 

 ments, cuneato-olicordate, erect or spreading, entire or slightly emarginate. Sta- 

 mens opposite to the calycine segments, in form like the top ol a crutch^^xtremely 

 short (about equalling the petals), erect, glabrous : Jilaments terete, slightly 

 tapered ; anthers whitish, incumbent, broader than the length of the filaments, 

 formed somewhat like the head or handle of a crutch, their lobes roundish, 

 merging into the compressed subapiculate connectivum, and bursting along a cen- 

 tral line of dehiscence. Stt/le very short, seated in a depression of the fleshy disk, 

 which fills the tube of the calyx, and surrounded by a tumid glandular fillet, 

 deeply cleft into 2 cylindrical spreading or somewhat recurved segments, wilh 

 simple, subglobose, glandular tips or stigmas. Fruit smaller than in the garden 

 plant, of a rather paler red, extremely acid, generally very sparingly produced or 

 quickly devoured by birds. 



The red Currant is indigenous to most of the colder parts of Europe, and is 

 found both in Asia and America beyond the arctic circle. It has been usually 

 regarded as a native of the northern counties only in England, and merely natu- 

 ralized in the South ; but in the Isle of Wight, in Sussex and Dorsetshire {Dr. 

 Bell-Sailer), its abundance in the mott sequestered situations plainly marks it as 

 an aboriginal with us. In the wild state the stem is generally simple or with very 

 few branches, and, although flowering freely, produces fruit but sparingly. The 

 Currant thrives best in a climate neither too warm nor too cold ; it resists both 

 heat and drought much better than the Gooseberry, producing fine fruit where the 

 latter fails from these causes. I have eaten very good currants at Montpellier, 

 where the summers are intensely hot and dry, and the gooseberry is never seen. 



It is to be remaiked that the flowers of the wild led Currant are, in this island 

 at least, always more or less tinged with reddish brown, whilst those of the culti- 

 vated variety are mostly if not constantly destitute of colour. 



