Proliferation of the inflorescence of Ribes

With a view to give a description of a very rare case of prolification of inflorescences, viz. in two species of Ribes, I feel it incumbent on me first to make a few preliminary remarks about the morphological place of the raceme in the said genus. As Eichler points out in his admirable book — Bliithendiagramme x) —, Ribes has two kinds of shoots ; long and short, of which No. 1 produces nothing but foliage-leaves, No. 2 an inflorescence at top and a lateral leafshoot under the inflorescence. His sketch (Fig. 1) shows how in the latter case the developed bud bears a number of scales : 1—6, which higher up pass to a few foliage-leaves : 7—9, 2° the inflorescence proper covered with bracts, 10, 11, 12 etc. as far as the top. From one (or two) of the foliage-leaves, in our figure No. 9, the leafy shoot is given off. This succession drawn from Ribes sanguineum, also applies to Ribes rubrum L. and nigrum L. We need hardly point out that in this sketch the lower portion of the developed bud is slightly magnified whereas the flowering part is reduced in size. The chief thing to be taken into consideration is that in the course of the season the leafy lateral branch strongly develops whereas the terminal, flowering, portion withers. About the place of origin of the flowering (better: mixed) and the purely leafy shoots should be added that the mixed shoots arc only produced by lateral (axillary) buds, whereas leafy shoots originate both from terminal and axillary buds. Consequently a terminal bud never produces flowers and berries, but both kinds of buds produce leaves.