CXI. — THE GOOSEBERRY. 
Ribes Grossularia Linne. 
I T is now generally agreed that the genus Ribes is so closely akin to the Saxifrages 
that at the most it can only be erected into a Tribe or Sub-Family Ribesioide^e in 
the Family Saxifragace^e. It comprises nearly sixty species of shrubs, native to the 
colder Temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere and to the Andes. They bear 
simple, scattered or tufted, stalked leaves, palmately veined, but variously folded in 
the bud and mostly exstipulate ; racemes of polysymmetric flowers with a distinctly 
inferior ovary ; resulting in a one-chambered berry, which is surmounted, when ripe, 
by the withered calyx. Much of the pulp in these fruits is, in fact, the testa or 
outer coat of the seeds. Their stems are, in some cases, covered, when young, 
with glandular hairs or may, as is the case with the Gooseberry, bear spines. The 
flowers, though sometimes unisexual, are mostly of small size, complete, regular, 
and generally pentamerous, with a bract and two minute bracteoles below each. The 
receptacular-, or so-called calyx-, tube, unlike that of most Saxifragace^^ is so united 
or continuous with the two carpels of the ovary as to present a somewhat marked 
difference from the half-adherent, or “ half-superior,” condition in the Saxifrages ; 
but it expands above into a saucer-shaped or deeper cup-shaped hollow, from glands 
at the base of which honey is secreted. The limb of the calyx is often coloured, 
and, as we have said, persists in a withered or niarcescent condition in the fruit stage. 
The expansion of the “ calyx-tube ” carries out the petals and stamens (each usually 
five in number) in a perigynous manner. In spite of their honey, the flowers, with 
their usually small scale-like petals, are not very conspicuous ; and, though insect 
visits occur, stamens and stigmas generally ripen sufficiently contemporaneously for 
self-pollination to take place. 
The name Ribes, which was employed by Fuchs, is said to have been of Arabic 
origin, to have referred originally to a species of Rhubarb, and to have been 
transferred to the Gooseberry and its congeners, which belong, as we have seen, to 
more northern climates, merely on account of the similar taste of the fruit of the 
latter and presumably the leaf-stalks of the former. Similarly the name Grossularia, 
used generically by Dodoens, is derived from the Latin grossus, an unripe fig. The 
French derivative of this, Groseille, is obviously connected with Grizzle and Gozill, 
which are recorded from Dumfries and from Kent respectively, and apparently 
with Groser, which is used in Turner’s “ Names of Herbes.” He writes, under 
V ua crispa 
“ Vua crispa is also called Grossularia, in english a Groser bushe, a Gooseberry bush. It groweth onely that I haue sene 
in England, in gardines, but 1 haue sene it in Germany abrode in the fieldes amonge other busshes.’^ 
Thus a name spelt in accordance with a fancied etymology, the berries having 
less to do with geese than they have, judging from the French Groseille a maquereau, 
