described as growing on some dry hills near Mildenhall, Suffolk, and on some other spots; but it is doubted if it is truly distinct from the ordinary form of the plant. Its leaves are described as not spreading, whereas in the general state of the Crooked Stonecrop they spread, and turn backwards. The flowering stems of this species are more slender and tough than those of any of the preceding kinds; they are from six to ten inches long. In July and August, thick clusters of its bright yellow flowers are to be seen clothing many an old wall and sunny bank with golden beauty. Dr. George Johnston, remarking on its tenacity of life, says of this plant: "I pressed strongly, between dry papers, a specimen without radicles, and the flowers of which were not in the least expanded. The papers were changed every three or four days; but at the end of as many weeks, so far was life from being extinct, that it had protruded many white root-fibres, from one to two inches long, and the flowers had fully expanded themselves."

10. S. rupestre (St. Vincent's Rock Stonecrop).-Leaves slightly flattened, spurred at the base, and 5 in a whorl, those of the barren branches overlapping each other; flowers in corymbs. Plant perennial. This species opens its flowers during June and July, not only on the St. Vincent's and Cheddar rocks, but also on walls about Darlington, and in some places in Wales. It is very nearly allied to the last, differing chiefly in its more flattened leaves.

11. S. Forsteriánum (Welsh Rock Stonecrop).-Leaves flattened, spurred at the base, those of the barren branches spreading in many rows. Plant perennial. This species flowers in June and July, on rocks near waterfall in Wales. The short, erect, densely leafy, barren stems, forming little rose-] e-like tufts, are its chief characteristics; but some botanists doubt if it is essentially distinct from the preceding.

ORDER XXXVI. GROSSULARIEÆ.-GOOSEBERRY AND

CURRANT TRIBE.

Calyx growing from the summit of the ovary, 4 or 5 cleft; petals 4-5, small, inserted at the mouth of the calyx-tube, and alternating with the stamens ; ovary 1-celled, with the young seeds arranged in two opposite rows; style 2—4 cleft; berry crowned with the withered calyx, pulpy, containing stalked seeds among the pulp. This Order consists of shrubs with or without thorns, and with simple lobed alternate leaves, plaited while in bud. The woody stems and branches are round, or irregularly angled. The species grow only in the temperate parts of the world.

1. RIBES (Currant and Gooseberry).-Caiyx 5-cleft; petals 5, inserted at the mouth of the calyx-tube; stamens 5; berry many-seeded, crowned by the withered calyx. Name given in ancient times by the Arabians to a species of Rhubarb.

1. RIBES (Currant and Gooseberry.)

* Flowers 1-3 together; branches thorny.

1. R. grossulária (Gooseberry).-Leaves rounded and lobed; flower-stalks short, hairy, 1-3 flowered, with a pair of small bracts; thorns either single, or two or three together. Among the many kinds of Gooseberry which are cultivated in our gardens, few are preferred for their fruits to the varieties of this common species. The plant grows in many woods and hedges, though it does not seem to be truly wild. Rough and smooth, green, red, and yellow gooseberries may, many of them, claim this common species as their parent. From very early times, the gooseberry has been much cultivated in this country, and it was by our forefathers called Feaberry. Mr. T. Hudson Turner says: "The earliest

notice of the gooseberry which I have found is in the fourth year of Edward I., 1276, when plants of this genus were purchased for the king's garden at Westminster; but, as it is an indigenous fruit, we may infer that it was known at a remote time, though probably only in a wild state." Tusser, who wrote his work on Husbandry in the time of Henry VIII., says,—

"The barbery, respis, and gooseberry too,

Look now to be planted as other things doe;"

and Lord Bacon, writing about fifty years after Tusser, says: "The earliest fruits are strawberries, cherries, gooseberries, and corrans; and after them, early apples, early pears, apricots, and rasps; and after them, damisons, and most kind of plums, peaches, &c.; and the latest are apples, wardens, grapes, nuts, quinces, sloes, brierberries, medlers, services, cornelians, &c." The partiality of the English for gooseberries is commented on in the French "Encyclopédie des Sciences." One of the writers of the work says: "A great number of gooseberries are consumed in Holland and in England; and one sees in London, during the season of these fruits, nothing but gooseberry pies. One must admit, however, that this fruit is well adapted to ameliorate the muriatic and alkaline acrimony of the English diet. In France, it is only women and children, or country people, who eat gooseberries." One reason, however, for their being less eaten may be found in the inferiority of the fruits when cultivated in France, or, indeed, in any warm climate. Even the English gooseberry is inferior to the fruit of Scotland; and, provided there is warmth enough for ripening, the flavour seems to increase with the coldness of the climate where it is grown. In the south of Europe, the fruit is so small and tasteless that it is quite neglected. In England, every cottage-garden can boast its gooseberry-bush, and, as Bishop Mant has said,

""Tis pleasant on each hardy tree,
Currant or prickly gooseberry,
Along the hawthorn's level line,
Or bush of fragrant eglantine,
Bramble or pithy elder pale,

Or larch or woodbine's twisted trail,
Or willow lithe, a flush of green

To note, with light transparent screen
At intervals the branches hide,

Of vegetable gauze, till wide

It spreads, and thickens to the eye,

A close-wove veil of deeper dye."

The gooseberry-leaf is, indeed, among the earliest of spring verdure. In France, it is much more common in the hedges than with us; and from the beginning of March the plant may be seen winding its branches among the bushes, and enlivening the dreary season. "In the month of April," says the French writer in "L'Encyclopédie des Sciences," "it attracts by its flowers crowds of bees; its foliage is very thick then, though other shrubs are just putting forth their leaves, so that it is an excellent plant for decking spring arbours. I have a hedge which borders one of the paths of my April bower, in front of which I have planted primroses, violets, and auriculas, which contrast agreeably with the green background, and form a most graceful coup d'œil." The leaf-stalks of the gooseberry are said by Professor Lindley to be beautiful objects beneath the microscope, on account of the delicate border of half-transparent hair-like fringe, which, when magnified, looks like the most brilliant needle-shaped crystals.

The Lancashire gooseberries are the best which are grown in our country, and the names of several well-known varieties indicate that they were cultivated by

working-men. All true lovers of their country must rejoice to see the hardtoiling weaver or collier resorting at the close of the day to his little garden, training his plants with care and skill, and striving to gain the prize to be given at the Gooseberry Show for the heaviest gooseberry. The Jolly Miner, Jolly Painter, Lancashire Lad, and many another good fruit, have originated thus, and were the result of industry. These gooseberries were reared by men who loved their homes and families, men of regular and orderly habits, mostly of lowly birth, but often of elevated feeling and Christian worth; for the lovers of plants and the skilful cultivators of cottage plots are not usually found among the idle and dissipated of mankind. Gooseberry-bushes often attain great age and considerable size. At Duffield, near Derby, there was, about twenty years since, a bush well known to be at least forty-six years old, the branches of which extended twelve yards in circumference; and in the garden of Sir Joseph Banks, at Overton Hall, near Chesterfield, there were two very large bushes, which had been trained against a wall, and which measured each upwards of fifty feet across. A writer in the Gardener's Chronicle remarks of a gooseberry plant: "It is surprising what efforts some plants, or parts of plants, will make to save, as it were, their lives when diseases or serious accidents befall them. A branch of a gooseberry, trained against a wall, became diseased near the ground, and began to die upwards gradually; but the top of the branch made a struggle for life, and threw out roots into the wall between the joints of the bricks, and in that dry situation found means to support itself; the dead wood was cut out, and the living part left near the top of the wall, and there it remains a living plant."

Gooseberries are of various colours-white, yellow, green, and red. Some of our richest flavoured fruits are of the yellow kind; the red gooseberries are usually more acid than the others, but there are many varieties in all the colours. We need not comment on their uses for tarts, puddings, and preserves. The fresh fruits are valuable additions to the dessert, and a sparkling wine of crystal clearness, known in country places as English champagne, is made of the gooseberry. The Pecten acid, the vegetable jelly of the older chemists, was also prepared from this fruit.

The groseille of the French, as well as our own gooseberry, have been variously accounted for by etymologists. Some think that the English name was derived from gorse and berry, because of the prickly shrub on which the fruit grows. Professor Burnett thinks that both the French and English words are corruptions of grois or gross berry; and Skinner considers that the plant was called gooseberry, because the fruits were used as sauce for the goose. Gerarde calls them Feaberries, and in Norfolk the fruits were called feabes. This author remarks, "The fruit is used in divers sawces for meate; they are used in brothes instead of verjuyce, which maketh the broth not onely pleasant to the taste, but is greatly profitable to such as are troubled with a hot burning ague."

**Flowers in clusters; branches without thorns.

2. R. rúbrum (Red Currant).-Clusters drooping; bracts very small; leaves with five blunt lobes. Plant perennial. Several varieties of this plant are found apparently wild, in one of which the flowering clusters are erect, but the fruit is pendulous; and in another both flowers and fruit are upright; but in the ordinary form of the plant both flowers and fruit hang drooping from the bough. The shrub, though found growing without culture in many parts of this kingdom, especially in hedges near houses, is hardly to be considered as truly wild, though some writers are of opinion that this is a native fruit. In Dodoen's "History of Plants," translated by Lyte in 1578, it is called the red beyond-sea gooseberry ;