Ribes divaricatum

Ribes divaricatum is a species of currant with three accepted varieties, and known by several common names, found in the forests, woodlands, and coastal scrub of western North America from British Columbia to California.

Contents 1 Varieties 2 Description 3 Traditional Native American medical plants 4 References 5 External links

Varieties

• The type variety (and autonym), R. d. var. divaricatum, or spreading gooseberry is found in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia.^[11]

• R. d. var. parishii, called Parish's gooseberry, is found only in California.^[12][13]

• R. d. var. pubiflorum, known as straggly gooseberry is native to both California and Oregon.^[14][15]

Other common names include coast black gooseberry, and wild gooseberry.

Description

R. divaricatum is a shrub sometimes reaching 3 meters in height with woody branches with one to three thick brown thorns at leaf nodes. The leaves are generally palmate in shape and edged with teeth. The blades are up to 6 centimeters long and borne on petioles.

The inflorescence is a small cluster of hanging flowers, each with reflexed purple-tinted green sepals and smaller, lighter petals encircling long, protruding stamens. The fruit is a berry up to a centimeter wide which is black when ripe. It is similar to Ribes lacustre and Ribes lobbii, but the former has smaller, reddish to maroon flowers and the latter has reddish flowers that resemble those of fuchsias and sticky leaves.

Traditional Native American medical plants

The fruit was food for a number of Native American groups of the Pacific Northwest, and other parts of the plant, especially the bark, was used for medicinal purposes.^[16]

References

External links

Media related to Ribes divaricatum at Wikimedia Commons

• Jepson Manual Treatment
• Photo gallery: var. pubiflorum