R I B 
shorter than the flower; leaves aeuminate-lobed,- gash- 
toothed, stem erect. Berries large, very deep red, extremely 
acid, and not losing their acidity by culture, and full of juice. 
—Native of Carinthia, Styria, Silesia, Bohemia, and occa¬ 
sionally found in England. 
3. Ribes procumbens, or trailing currant.—Racemes erect, 
flowers flatfish, leaves obtusely lobed, stem procumbent. 
Stems concealed in the moss, scarcely thicker than a swan’s 
quill. Berries often larger than the black currant, hanging 
down from almost erect racemes, yellowish green, or when 
ripe rufescent, very pleasant to the taste, and therefore in 
much request in Dauria, where the shrub grows wild. 
4. Ribes glandulosum, or glandulous currant.—Racemes 
erect, with glandular hairs, flowers flatfish, leaves aeuminate- 
lobed toothed, stem ascending, rooting. Fruit eatable but 
not good.—Native of North America. 
5. Ribes aipinum, or tasteless mountain curraut.— 
Racemes erect, bractes longer than the flower. Leaves 
smaller than in the common currant (ribes rubrum), 
threelobed, serrate, smoothish, shining, especially under¬ 
neath ; the segments lanceolate, pointed. Berries elliptic, 
red, mucilaginous and insipid; or with a flat sweetish taste. 
The wood being hard and tough, makes pood teeth for rakes. 
—Native of Europe and Asia, in woods, thickets, and hedges. 
In England only in the northern parts. Flowering in April 
.and May. 
6 . Ribes spicatum, or acid mountain currant.—Spikes 
erect, petals oblong, bractes shorter than the flower. Berries 
like those of the black currant in colour and taste.—Native 
of Yorkshire. 
. 7. Ribes fragrans, or fragrant currant.—Racemes erect, 
corollas bell-shaped, leaves bluntly three-lobed, stem ascend¬ 
ing, exuding from their under surface a scent similar to that 
• of black currants. Fruit at most the size of the black currant, 
red, and very sweet.—Native of Siberia, on mountains bor¬ 
dering on Mongolia, where there are no woods. 
8 . Ribes tnste.—Racemes pendulous, corollas flatlish, 
leaves five-lobed. Berries small, black, insipid, full of a 
blackish-red juice, very excellent for colouring wines.—Na¬ 
tive of Siberia. 
9 . Ribes nigrum, or common black currant.—The com¬ 
mon black currant is distinguished by its humble habit, its 
strong smelling leaves glandular underneath, its hairy racemes, 
tubular calyx, and black fruit, but especially by its solitary, 
one-flowered peduncle at the base of the raceme, and distinct 
from it. 
The buds are glandular; the bractes woolly and as long as 
the pedicels; the flowers villose; the petioles also subvillose 
and glandular.—It is a native of most parts of Europe, espe¬ 
cially the more northern parts; also of Siberia, especially 
the subalpine regions, by river-sides and in woods; where the 
bunches and berries are very large and sapid; and of woods 
in the northern parts of Russia. In Britain it is found in wet 
hedges, on the banks of rivers, ii* alder-swamps, and some¬ 
times in woods ; flowering in May. 
The Russians make a wine ot the berries alone, or fer¬ 
mented with honey, with or without spirits; or they mix the 
expressed juice with spirit drawn from wheat. They make 
a drink also of the leaves in Siberia. 
10. Ribesfloridum, or American black currant.—Racemes 
pendulous, flowers cylindrical, bractes longer than the germ 
(scarcely longer than the flower), leaves dotted on both sides. 
According to Pallas, it agrees exactly with ribes nigrum in 
its form and manner of growth, but differs in having the ra¬ 
cemes a span in length, erect, not pendulous; and the 
leaves, bark, and berries without any smell. Berries black, 
oblong; the pulp purplish, having a vinous smell, and a 
taste like strawberries,—Native of Pennsylvania. 
II. Prickly. Grossulariae or Gooseberries. 
11. Ribes diacantha, or two-spined gooseberry.—Prickles 
in pairs, stipular, flowers in racemes, leaves wedgeform-three- 
parted, toothed. This is a sort of intermediate species be¬ 
tween the currants and gooseberries; it has a pair of prickles 
only at the buds; in other parts it is unarmed. Berries dusky 
Vol. XXII. No. 1485. 
R I B 7'S 
red when ripe, of a sweetish acid flavour, having four, or some¬ 
times five, flattened seeds.—Native of Siberia; flowering in 
May. The berries dried are used there as we do the currants 
of Zante. 
12. Ribes saxatile, or mountain gooseberry.—Prickles scat¬ 
tered, leaves wedgeform, obtusely three-lobed, racemes erect. 
13. Ribes reclinatum, or procumbent gooseberry.—Branches 
somewhat prickly, reclining, bracte of the peduncle three¬ 
leaved. 14. Ribes grossularia, or rough-fruited gooseberry. 
—Branches prickly, petioles hairy, peduncles one-flowered, 
bractes two, fruit hairy. 
15. Ribes uva crispa, or smooth-fruited gooseberry.— 
Branches prickly, peduncles one-flowered, bractes connate- 
tubulous, fruit smooth. Buds woolly. Calyx bent back. 
Peduncle woolly. Bracte ovate, embracing, generally with 
three divisions. Flowers solitary, pendant. Stipules ciliate 
with knobbed hairs. A triple thorn beneath the buds. 
Berry crowned with the permanent calyx, peduncled, pulpy, 
subdiaphanous, pale, amber-coloured, red or purple, smooth; 
the pulp watery and sweet. Receptacles formed of the skin 
of the berry thickened, oblong, narrow; with filiform umbi¬ 
lical chords, the length of the seeds, and inserted into their 
inner and blunter extremity. Seeds as far as thirty, ovate- 
oblong, with a pellucid jelly about them, rufescent. 
This differs from the preceding only in the smoothness of 
the berries, in having the bractes united into a tube at the 
base, and the hairs of the petioles glandular: all fallacious 
and uncertain marks.—Native of Europe, especially the north¬ 
ern parts. It is common in Cambridgeshire, Norfolk, and 
other counties of England, but only in hedges, on walls and 
old buildings, and decaying trees, where the seeds have been 
deposited by birds: or if it be found sometimes in woods, it 
has got there by the same chance. 
The varieties now best known, are—Of the red; the hairy, 
smooth, deep red, damson or dark-red blueish, red rasp¬ 
berry, early black-red, Champaigne, &c.—Of *the green ; 
hairy, smooth, Gascoigne, raspberry, Sic. —Of the yellow ; 
great oval, great amber, hairy amber, early amber, large 
tawney or Great Mogul, &e.—Of the white; common, 
white-v ined, and large crystal. 
Besides these, there is the rumbullion, large ironmonger, 
smooth ironmonger, hairy globe, and innumerable others, 
some of very large size, annually raised from seed ; weighing 
from ten to fifteen pennyweights, but there are small ones 
better tasted. There are said to be upwards of two hundred, 
at least in name. 
16. Ribes oxyacanthoides, or hawthorn-leaved currant.— 
This has more frequent and milder prickles than the common 
gooseberry; the leaves are smooth and more deeply cut; the 
fruit small and round, the size and shape of a currant; colour 
at first purple, but when ripe dark purple with a blue bloom; 
it is smooth, on a short slender peduncle; the pulp subacid, 
dusky purple, with one or two brown seeds, of a round form 
slightly angular.—Native of Canada. Cultivated, according 
to Plukenet, by Mr. Reynardson, 1705. It flowers in April 
and May. 
17. Ribes cynosbati, or prickly fruited currant.—This has 
the appearance of the other species, but the leaves are little 
gashed. Prickle like a thorn under the axils. Peduncles 
generally three-flowered. Germ in the flower hairy, but not 
prickly. It has the corolla of ribes grossularia. Berries the 
size of a hazel-nut, armed all over with stout prickles.—Na¬ 
tive of Canada. Cultivated by Mr. Miller in 1759. It 
flowers in April. 
Propagation\and Culture. —These are propagated either by 
suckers taken from the old plants, by layers, or by cu'tings ; 
the latter of which are preferred to the former, because those 
plants which are produced from suckers are always more dis¬ 
posed to shoot out a great number of suckers from their roots, 
than such as are raised from cuttings, which generally form 
much better roots. 
RI'BIBE, s. [ rubebe , violon. Lacombe.] A sort of 
stringed instrument. Obsolete. See Rebeck. 
RIB1ERS, a town in the south-east of France, department 
of the Upper Alps, on the river Bunet, with 1-300 inhab- 
U itants, 
