Shrubs Of The Great Basin: A Natural History

Western Golden Currant

Western Golden Currant Ribes aureum THE WESTERN GOLD~N CURRANT is far and away the most attractive of our native species ofcurrant or gooseberry. It is highly regarded, not only for its showy yellow flowers produced in spring but also for its relatively sweet, juicy orange berries. Some forms produce black or red berries. Howard McMinn in his book An Illustrated Manual ofCalifornia Shrubs tells of some golden currants in the trial garden at Mills College, California, which produced all black fruits early in the season and all orange fruits later on. The parent plant was said to have produced red, black, or orange fruits. This striking color variation is most probably due to a simple inheritance pattern, though no one has yet worked out the precise genetic mechanism involved. An edible variety known as the Crandall as well as several others have been developed, although they are rarely grown. Most white and red cur~ rants in cultivation belong to the Eurasian species, R. sativum. The com~ mercial black currant, R. nigrum, is little grown in this country. The western golden currant is widely distributed in the Great Basin and in the West generally. It is sometimes quite abundant along irrigation ditches and the floodplains of streams. Although the wax currant is occasionally cultivated for ornament, the western golden currant is the most widely grown of our native Great Basin species. In suitable locations it will grow taller than 2 meters, and horticulturists have found that it is easily propa~ gated from cuttings. The branches, which produce a gray or brown bark, bear three~ or five~lobed leaves with conspicuous veins. They vary in length from I to 3 centimeters. Both the stems and the leaves are without pubes~ cence, though rarely the leaves may show some sign of it. In our discussion of the wax currant, we point out that the variation in the nature of the floral tube in currants and gooseberries extends from forms 134 Western Golden Current GROSSULARIACEAE with broad, open, cuplike flowers to varieties with narrow, cylindrical flowers. The western golden currant is especially notable in that it has one of the longest and narrowest tubular flowers among our native forms. The tubular, yellow portion is about 1 centimeter long. At the mouth of the tube are five small, yellow petals about 3 millimeters long, alternating with the larger sepal lobes, which are about half or a little less than half the length of the tube. In some forms, the petals of older flowers become somewhat reddish. Because of the narrow, tubular nature of the flower, the number of different insect visitors is restricted compared to species with a more open form. Some insects, however, are able to circumvent this limitation by simply bor, ing a hole through the base of the flower to get at the nectar. The western golden currant has a wide range over the West, extending from the Los Angeles area north to British Columbia and east to the Rocky Mountains. McMinn notes that in southern California and the south Coast ranges "the flowers lack the spicy odor of the plants east of the Sierra Ne, vada and in the Rocky Mountains." A form known as variety gracillimum, which grows near the coast of California, has flowers with a tubular portion relatively longer compared to the calyx lobes than is true of the typical vari, ety. But this is at best a minor difference, not recognized as significant by some botanists. The original specimen of R. aureum on which the descrip, tion is based, the so,called type specimen, was collected by Meriwether Lewis in the Rocky Mountains during the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804 to 1806. The common name of wrrant has a curious origin. Corinth, Greece, was the main port for the export of seedless raisins during medieval times. In France, these became known as the raisins of Courantz, and only a minor linguistic change was required to arrive at "currant." The name was applied to our modern currant because black currants, especially, resemble the "rai, sins of Corinth." The scientific name Ribes has a similar convoluted origin. It appears to be derived from the Arabic ribas, which was applied to a me' dicinal species of rhubarb. When the Moors invaded Spain in the eighth century, they gave the name to a plant which they perceived as having simi, lar properties, since there was no native...