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R I B E S Uva-crispa.
Smooth Gooseberry.
PENTANDRIA Monogynia.
G en. C har. Cal. superior, bell-shaped, 5-cleft, bearing
the petals and stamens. Style cloven. Berry with
many seeds.
Spec. Char. Branches prickly. Footstalks hairy. Flower-
stalks single-flowered. Bracteas united. Fruit smooth.
Syn. Ribes Uva-crispa. Linn. Sp. PL 2 9 2 . Sm. FI.
Brit. 2 6 6 . With. 2 6 6 . Hull. 5 4 . Relh. 9 7 . Sibth.
8 4 . Cullum. 88. Schmidel. Ic. 5 . t. 1.
Uva crispa. Fuchs. Hist. 187. Ger. em. 1324.
As we have been led, by great authorities, into an error,
though not without repeatedly offering our protest against it,
we deem it right to show what is meant by the plant in question,
which indeed is necessary to the plan of this work.
A t the same time we demonstrate that some of the reputed
characters, by which this has been supposed distinct from
R. Grossularia, t. 1202, the glandular footstalks and united
bracteas, are evanescent and futile, as Mr. Robson, by sowing
the seeds, has proved the roughness or smoothness of the
fruit to be. The germen indeed is hairy in the present plant,
sent by Mr. W . Borrer from Sussex, though the fruit is
smooth. The bracteas are scarcely at all united at the base, but
this is a very variable circumstance. The footstalks of all wild
gooseberry-bushes are generally hairy, but in some the hairs
are more glandular than in others, as they likewise are on the
germen of the Rough Gooseberry, while in that before us they
are simple soft pointed hairs.