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111 B E S rubrum.
Common Currant.
PENTANDR1A Monogynia.
G en. Char. Cal. superior, bell-shaped, 5-cleft, bearing
the petals and stamina. Style cloven. Berry with
many seeds.
Spec. Char. No thorns. Clusters smooth, pendulous.
Flowers but little concave. Petals obtuse.
Syn. Ribes rubrum. Linn. Sp. PI. 290. Sm. Fl.
Brit. 263. Huds. 99. With. 264. Hull. 54.
Relh. 96. Sibth. 84. Lighlf. 146. Woodv. Med.
Bot. t. 74.
R. vulgaris, fructu rubro. Rail Syn. 456.
A NATIVE of the mountainous parts of Durham and the
north of Yorkshire, about the banks of rivers. Mr. Robson
and Mr. W . Brunton have furnished us with wild specimens of
the leaves and flowers, but the berries we could never obtain
(except from gardens), the birds feeding on them before they
are ripe.
The value of this shrub, when cultivated for its fruit, is
sufficiently well known. The white and pale red are preferred
,for their sweetness, the full red, or wild kind, for its grateful
acid. The Currant is quite the fruit of a cold climate, thriving
very ill in the south of Europe. The flowers are out in May;
the fruit ripens in July.
This is a bushy shrub, with smooth and unarmed branches.
Leaves deciduous, on long footstalks, five-lobed, doubly-ser-
rated, most downy beneath. Clusters simple, at all times
pendulous. Bracteae solitary, ovate, concave, small, smooth,
very much shorter than the partial flower-stalks. Sometimes
there are a pair of other small bracteae under each flower, but
not so constant nor conspicuous as in R. petrceum, t. 705-
Flowers cupshaped, nearly flat, yellowish green. Petals obtuse,
or inversely heartshaped. Berries globular, smooth, red
and shining.