The Currants are distinguished by the stems being entirely without spines, and the flowers being produced in racemes. The leaves are cordate, and bluntly three or five lobed, a little downy beneath, but smooth above. The flowers of the Red Currant (_Ribes rubrum_) are numerous, and they are produced in drooping racemes, with a little bracteole at the base of each footstalk (see _a_ in _fig._ 137). The calyx is flattish, with the segments (_b_), which are of a pale greenish colour, spreading widely, and not recurved. The anthers (_c_) are loosely attached to the filaments, and they burst sideways and across. The style (_d_) is short, and divided into two spreading stigmas at the apex. The fruit is smooth and transparent, with many seeds, and it retains the remains of the calyx (_e_) when ripe. The white, and the striped or flesh-coloured Currants, are varieties of _R. rubrum_. The Black Currant (_R. nigrum_) has a more compact, and campanulate flower (see _a_ in _fig._ 138), with the segments of the calyx reflexed; the anthers (_b_) are more firmly attached to the filament; the style (_c_) is not cleft, and the stigma is two-lobed and capitate. The fruit (_d_) has a thick opaque skin, and the eye of the calyx is larger; the leaves are also covered on the under surface with glands or cells, filled with a fragrant oil formed by the limb, as shown at (_e_), which represents the appearance of the leaf when held up to the light. There is often a solitary flower on a separate pedicel, at the foot of the raceme; and there are frequently ten stamens instead of five, and no petals, the petals having been changed into stamens—a metamorphose the reverse of that which generally takes place. [Illustration: FIG. 138.—THE BLACK CURRANT.] The most ornamental kinds of Currant are _R. multiflorum_, with very long drooping racemes of greenish flowers; _R. sanguineum_, the flowers of which are crimson, and somewhat tubular; _R. aureum_, which has the flowers of a golden yellow, and quite tubular; and _R. cereum_, which has roundish leaves covered with white waxy dots on their upper surface, and racemes with few flowers, which are rather large, and of a pure white. A few species, such as _R. saxatile_ and _R. Diacantha_, appear to be intermediate between the Currant and the Gooseberry, as they have the racemes of fruit common to the one, with the spines and habit of growth of the other. There is said to be another species nearly allied to _R. sanguineum_, with dark-purple flowers, which has not yet been introduced. ORDER XCV.—ESCALLONIACEÆ.