260 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY. 
THE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE 
RED CURRANT. 
By Edward A. Bunyard, F.L.S. 
[Read September 12, 1916; Mr. Gurney Wilson, F.L.S. , in the Chair.] 
The Red Currant is one of the most modern of our fruits, and its 
history is therefore comparatively easily traced, as the whole of its 
development has taken place since the invention of printing. It is 
thus possible to find in herbals and early gardening books a fairly 
accurate record of its progress. The question of the influence of cul- 
tivation upon plants is one of great interest, and conflicting views are 
held as to its importance and existence. The writer endeavoured to 
show in a recent paper that in the history of the Strawberry it had 
played but an unimportant part, the whole of the increase in the size of 
the fruit being due to the interbreeding of large-fruited wild species.* 
The Red Currant is a parallel case, and I think it quite possible to 
account for all the garden Currants of to-day, with the exception of 
one group, in the same manner. In the excepted case a sudden 
appearance of a distinct type has to be accounted for, and there is no 
evidence of a gradual amelioration by cultivation. As it is somewhat 
difficult to treat concurrently the botanical and horticultural develop- 
ments, the former will be taken first, the evidence of garden literature 
becoming clearer when studied in its light. 
The three species which have taken part in the history of the Red 
Currant are Ribes rubrum, Ribes vulgare, and Ribes petraeum. These 
have been much confused in the past, but the recent work of 
Janczewski Wf has rectified this, and will be taken as the authority 
for the following descriptions, which will give such salient characters 
as suffice for our purpose. Special stress must be laid upon the 
character of the flower, as the size of the fruit varies so remarkably 
under cultivation that it does not provide a reliable recognition mark. 
Such increase in size is of course only maintained so long as the condi- 
tions remain constant, and must not be confused with that of a genetic 
character. 
Ribes vulgare Lamarck, 1789 (see figs. 36-40). — Native of Western 
Europe, France, Belgium, Great Britain. A small spreading shrub, 
leaves 3 or 5-lobed, slightly downy beneath in some forms ; flowers flat, 
pale green ; sepals turning back ; petals minute, wedge-shaped. The 
fleshy ring around the style is a good character by which this species 
can always be recognized, and even in crosses with Ribes rubrum it 
can still be distinguished (fig. 36, ic). The racemes are pendulous 
* See Journal R.H.S. xxxix. p. 541 (1914). f F °r references see p. 269, 
