Shrubs, mostly unarmed, a few species bristly. Leaves palmately veined, usually lobed. Racemes several-many-flowered; pedicels jointed beneath the ovary, usually with a pair of bractlets just below the joint. Ovary not spiny. Fruit disarticulating from its pedicel. [The About 65 species, natives of the north temperate zone, Mexico and the Andes of South America. Besides the following, some 25 others occur in western North America. Type: Ribes rubrum L.

Stems bristly and spiny.

1.

R. lacustre.

Stems unarmed.

Ovary with sessile glands.

2.

R. hudsonianum.

Ovary without glands, or with stalked glands.

Calyx-tube (hypanthium) obsolete.

Ovary glabrous.

Petals yellowish-green.

3.

R. vulgare.

Petals red.

4.

R. triste.

Ovary with stalked glands.

5.

R. glandulosum

Calyx-tube (hypanthium) evident.

Calyx-tube greenish to yellowish-white.

Racemes very short; leaf-lobes rounded; fruit red.

6.

R. inebrians.

Racemes long, drooping; leaf-lobes acutish; fruit black.

7.

R. americanum.

Calyx-tube bright yellow.

8.

R. odoratum.

1 Ribes L Sp Pl 201 1753 539

1. Ribes Lacústre (Pers.) Poir. Swamp Gooseberry

Fig. 2197

Ribes oxyacanthoides var. lacustre Pers. Syn.

1: 252. 1805. Ribes lacustre Poir. in Lam. Encycl. Suppl. 2:

856. 1811.

Spines slender, weak, generally clustered. Branches usually densely bristly; petioles slender, more or less pubescent; leaves nearly orbicular, thin, glabrous or nearly so, deeply 5-7-lobed, 1'-7' wide, the lobes obtuse or acutish, incised-dentate; flowers racemose, green or purplish, about "2" long; pedicels slender, bracted at the base, about 2" long; calyx-tube short, its lobes short, broad, spreading; stamens very short, not exserted; berry 2"-$" in diameter, reddish, covered with weak gland-tipped bristles.

In swamps and wet woods, Newfoundland to Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Alaska and California. May-June.