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XVIII. Upon the Variations of the Red Currant ( Ribes 

 rubram) when propagated by Seed. By Thomas Andrew 

 Knight, Esq. F. R. S. $c. President. 



Read February 3, 1818. 



Th e hardiness of the blossom of the Red Currant tree,* its 

 abundant produce in almost every different soil and situation, 

 the facility with which it is propagated, and the variety of 

 uses to which its fruit is applicable, unite to place it amongst 

 the most useful of our fruits ; although the excess of its 

 acid, and its want of sweetness, render it of little value in 

 the dessert. It is, nevertheless, as a fruit, greatly superior 

 to the sloe of our hedges, which I entertain no doubt of 

 being able to prove the common parent of all our plums ; 



* Of what country the Red Currant is a native, I do not think we possess any • 

 decisive or satisfactory evidence. Mr. Aiton, in his Hortus Kewensis, supposes 

 it to be a native of England ; but this I think exceedingly questionable. It is 

 generally found growing wild near the site of old villages, in different parts of 

 England ; but it does not appear sufficiently ubiquitous to have been a native, or 

 to have been introduced at any very early period. The earliest description I 

 have seen of it, is in Dodoen's History of Plants, the translator of which into 

 English, in 1578, calls it « the red beyondsea Gooseberie." He also states that 

 the French, at that period, called the red beyondsea Gooseberies « GroiseUes 

 d'outre Mer? and the Dutch, at the same period, applied the term « over zee* 

 to it. These circumstances appear scarcely consistent with its being a native 

 of the continent of Europe ; and if it had been a native of England, it would 

 scarcely have received its name from that given to the small seedless grape of 

 the Levant. 6 r 



