STUDIES OF PLANT LIFE 
SMALL SwAMP GOOSEBERRY—Ribes lacustre (Poir.). 
Very pretty in flower, but very bristly, and the fruit small, 
not larger than peas, in slender racemes, of a purplish color 
and unpleasant flavor. The blossoms are pink and hang in 
graceful bunches on the weak and very prickly branches. 
This small bristly species resembles the 
TRAILING Harry Currant—Ribes prostratum (L’Her.). 
This is the least desirable of the Currant family, being far 
from wholesome. The whole plant is weak and reclining on 
the ground, often rooting from the joints. The leaves are 
rather large, smooth and five-to-seven lobed. The small 
round very pale red berries are hairy, glandular, and of a 
very unpleasant taste and odor. I have known persons 
made very ill by eating tarts made of the Hairy Currants. 
It is easily distinguished by its trailing habit and hairy 
berries and erect racemes of flowers. I have found it chiefly 
growing in low lands and thickets, near swamps. 
A larger bush, and of common occurrence in swampy 
ground, is the 
WILD BLACK CuRRANT—R. floridum (L.). 
When in blossom this Wild Black Currant is an orna- 
mental object. The flowers, of a pale greenish-yellow, are 
larger than the common garden species, and droop in long 
graceful flowery racemes from the branches. The leaves are 
of a grayish-green, sharply lobed; the bark gray and smooth; 
berries very dark red, deepening when ripe to blackish- 
purple; they are large and somewhat pear-shaped, in flavor 
not unlike the garden fruit. I should think it possessed of 
a narcotic quality; certainly it is not very agreeable, though 
some people like it, and it is extensively used as a preserve. 
The bush takes kindly to cultivation but is, 1 think, more 
ornamental than useful. 
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