GROSSULARIA ECHINELLA, A SPINY-FRUITED 
GOOSEBERRY FROM FLORIDA 1 
By Frederick V. Coville 
Botanist in Charge , Office of Economic and Systematic Botany , Bureau of Plant 
Industry , United States Department of Agriculture 
While in Tallahassee, Fla., early this spring, the writer was invited by Dr. 
Roland M. Harper, of the State geological survey, and Dr. H. Kurz, of the State 
College for Women, to join them in a visit to Lake Miccosukee where a few weeks 
before they had found a wild gooseberry, at that time not yet in flower. The 
plant promised to be of great interest, for although the name “gooseberry ” is 
often misapplied in the southeastern United States to the fruit of the various 
species of deerberry, or Polycodium, no true gooseberry had ever been reported 
from Florida. 
On March 2, 1924, we made the 26-mile drive from Tallahassee to Dogwood 
Landing, on the east shore of the northwest arm of Lake Miccosukee, about a 
mile east of the main buildings of the Norias Club. A few hundred yards east 
of the landing, in the strip of woodland bordering the lake, we came upon the 
first plant, in full leaf and flower. It had been our expectation that it would 
prove to be the Georgia gooseberry, Grossularia curvata , a rare southern species, 
the type locality of which is on thje slopes of Stone Mountain, Ga. The plant 
found, however, was recognized immediately as not Grossularia curvata but a 
species new to science, differing conspicuously from curvata in the coarse bristly 
gland-tipped hairs of the ovary, which develops into an exceedingly spiny fruit. 
This characteristic has suggested the species name echinella , which indicates the 
resemblance of the berry to a little hedgehog. 
On March 27 Doctor Kurz and the writer again visited the locality. Unusu¬ 
ally cold weather had prevailed and many of the gooseberry bushes were still 
in full flower. Some of the young green spiny fruits had already reached a 
diameter of five-eighths of an inch. On April 7 Doctor Kurz visited the place 
again and sent the writer fresh pollen from newly expanded flowers, and half 
mature fruits, the largest seven-eighths of an inch in diameter. 
TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION 
Grossularia echinella, sp. nov. 
Plant a shrub 0.5 to 1 meter in height, often forming patches several meters 
in diameter, the branches spreading and recurved, sometimes rooting at the tip; 
stems with spines at the nodes but devoid of bristles except occasionally on 
vigorous basal shoots; spines single, double, or triple, stout, dark reddish brown, 
sometimes turning gray with age, reaching a length of 1.5 cm.; outer bark of 
1-year-old branches dull white to almost buff, splitting with the growth of the 
twig and exposing the inner dark reddish brown bark; petioles pubescent, usu¬ 
ally a little longer than the leafblades but sometimes exceeded by them and 
usually bearing near the base a few large gland-tipped and often plumose hairs; 
1 Received for publication, Apr. 1, 1924. 
Journal of Agricultural Research, 
Washington, D. C. 
( 71 ) 
Vol. XXVIII, No. 1 
Apr. 5, 1924 
Key No. G-398 
