240 Report upon New and Rare Plants, $c. 



the calyx ovate not glandular. The fruit is represented in 

 Chinese drawings to be about the size and colour of the My- 

 robalan Plum, or Prunus cerasifera. 



XLVII. Ribes aureum. Pursh. 



Under this name there are confounded in Gardens two dis- 

 tinct species, and several remarkable varieties, which differ 

 not so much in general appearance, as in their respective pe- 

 riods of flowering, in the shape and quality of their fruit, and 

 the manner in which their foliage is affected by change of 

 season. I will first distinguish the varieties which I consider 

 referable to R. aureum, and then give some account of the 

 species that has been confounded with it. 



The plant, which is figured in the Botanical Register, plate 

 125, may be considered the original form of the species. 

 This, which is the earliest that flowers, and which I call 

 R. aureum prcecox, is perhaps the best of the varieties. Its 

 leaves are downy beneath, almost always wedge shaped at the 

 base, especially in the early part of the season, and the lobes 

 of the leaves are coarsely cut. The racemes of flowers are 

 furnished with long leafy persistent bracteae. The fruit is 

 produced in great abundance about the middle of July. The 

 berries are obovate or turbinate, black, about the size of the 

 Common Black Currant, and contain a greenish yellow dense 

 mucilaginous pulp, with a strong disagreable flavour. Plants of 

 this variety are occasionally to be obtained in the French 

 and English Nurseries under the false name of R. orientale, 

 but it is far from being common. 



The second variety, R. aureum serotinum, is more common 

 in the Nurseries than the last, from which it is distinguished 



