fcy Mr. John Lindley. 



241 



by its flowering and fruiting from ten days to a fortnight 

 later. The leaves are smoother beneath, for the most part 

 truncate at the base, not cuneate, especially when they are 

 three lobed. The Flowers are the same as the last but the 

 bracteae are smaller and deciduous, so that the racemes of 

 fruit are destitute of foliage. The latter are less abun- 

 dant than in the first variety ; and the berries are spherical 

 not turbinate but they have the same vapid unpleasant 

 flavour. 



The third variety R. aureum sanguineum was presented to 

 the Society by Mr. Michael Floy of New York under the 

 name of the Scarlet Missouri Currant. The flowers appear at 

 the same time as those of jK. aureum serotinum which it most 

 nearly resembles, but it is at once distinguished from it by the 

 circumstance of its leaves becoming in the autumn of a deep 

 scarlet colour. The fruit is large and spherical, and supported 

 by large persistent bractese. The flavour of the berries is 

 much better in this variety than in either of the others, having 

 sufficient acidity to remove the mawkish taste which prevails 

 so far in every variety of R. aureum,* as to throw doubt upon 

 the statement given by Pursh of the great excellence of the 

 fruit of the wild plant. 



To bring the differences between these three varieties more 

 distinctly into view the following differential characters will 

 be useful. 



* Since this paper was read, Mr. Douglas has returned from his expedition to 

 the North West of North America, the native country of Ribes aureum ; and 

 from him I learn that the fruit, of which so much has been expected, if pro- 

 duced upon plants, growing in rich alluvial land is uniformly worthless, but that 

 upon high dry limestone rocks it acquires a quality of great excellence. 

 VOL. VII. I i 



