88 SYSTEMATIC POMOLOGY. 



GENUS EIBES. 



(Name of uncertain origin.) 



Low shrubs; flowers in spring; fruit mostly edible. 



Leaves palmately veined and lobed ; sometimes with narrow 

 stipules united with the base of the petiole. Calyx with its tube 

 cohering with the ovary, and often extended beyond it, the 5 

 lobes usually colored like the petals. Petals and stamens each 

 5, on the throat of the calyx, the former small and mostly erect. 

 Styles 2 or partly united into one ; ovary 1-celled with 2 parietal 

 placentae, in fruit becoming a juicy berry, crowned with the 

 shriveled remains of the rest of the flower. 



GOOSEBEREIES. 



stems commonly with 1 or 2 thorns helow the leaf-stalks or 

 the clusters of leaves, often with numerous scattered prichles 

 besides, these sometimes on the herry also. Flowers one to 

 three in a cluster; small and greenish; calyx lobes longer than 

 the tube. 



R. Grossuldria, Linn. — Eueopean Goosebekey^ but more 

 or less cultivated here in several varieties, as Industry, Crown 

 Bob, etc., is a stocky bush with thickish leaves, a. pubescent 

 ovary and calyx, and a large, usually finely pubescent fruit. 



R. oxyacanthoides, Linn. Parent of the American Goose- 

 berries, like Houghton and Downing, is seldown downy, with 

 thinner leaves, very short thorns or none ; very short peduncles ; 

 stamens and 2-cleft style scarcely longer than the bell-shaped, 

 smooth calyx; ovary and berry smooth, the latter medium- 

 sized, either green or reddish when ripe. ISTew Eng. to N. J., W. 



The varieties of the native species are few and fall readily 



