Slatsz' plant photo-biography: Ribes aureum, golden currant, buffalo currant, clove currant

There is an article on Ribes aureum by Kathy Lloyd of the Montana Native Plant Society at the bottom of this entry. Lots of reference to Meriwether Lewis and uses by Native Americans.

Ribes aureum, golden currant, buffalo currant, clove currant.

University of Oklahoma: Synonym Ribes odoratum

Grossulariaceae, Gooseberry family or Currant family. Formerly in Saxifragaceae family.

First collected by Meriwether Lewis in April of 1806 in what is now the state of Washington “… on the banks of the rivers Missouri and Columbia”. [Probably collected first in Montana.]

Pursh named and described the plant in his Flora of North America, 1814.

Flora of North America: Three varieties in North America. Var. Aureum are more highly lobed and are sparsely glandular in Pacific Northwest and less lobed and more densely glandular in the southwest.

Southwest Colorado Wild Flowers: Linnaeus named the genus in 1753. Some say from the Danish name for red currants, ‘ribs’. Other’s say it is from the Arabic name for similar plants.

Robert W. Freckmann Herbarium, University of Wisconsin. Ribes: From Syrian or Kurdish ‘ribas’, which was derived from an old Persian word.

Native

It is a woody shrub six to nine feet tall with an irregular crown.

It propagates by rhizomes and seeds.

Southwest Colorado Wildflowers has a detailed map showing R. aureum ‘present and not rare’ in counties east to Oklahoma and Kansas, some in Arkansas. They are ‘present’ in northeast USA and Tennessee and in most of Canada.

Wikipedia has R. aureum native to Canada, northern Mexico and most of the United States except the southeast.

Burke Herbarium has R. aureum in Washington State’s eastern counties except for northern tier counties and Columbia County. They have it only in King County west of the Cascades.

Jepson finds R. aureum up to 3000 meters. Slichter finds the between 100 and 400 feet in the Columbia Gorge. I suppose Drumheller Springs Park is around 1900 feet.

Most Grossulariaceae have spines. Ribes aureum has neither spines nor prickles.

R. aureum is drought tolerant. Many Grossulariaceae are not.

R. aureum is susceptible to white pine blister rust, Cronartium rigicola, a fungus. There have been several eradication efforts over the years. I suppose the reference is to ‘The BRC’, Blister Rust Control, a major employer of Spokane Youth in the 1950’s.

Leaves

alternate

petiolate

palmate 3 lobed

Turner: Leaves have glands when young.

Flora of North America: Margins of young leaves often with slender extension like multicelled hairs. Surfaces of leaves sometimes with colorless or yellowish nearly sessile glands.

The University of Oklahoma says the leaves are ‘… alternate or fascicled …’. Something else to look for in 2013.

Digression on ‘Fascicle’:

Wikipedia

A fascicle is a bundle of leaves or flowers. It is in some cases called a short shoot. The nodes of a shoot are crowded without clear internodes.

Pine needles are examples of fascicles.

Opuntia spines are fascicles that have nothing to do with branch morphology.

Latin: fasciculus, diminutive of fascis, a bundle [Fascist symbol.].

Inflorescence

Flora of North America: ascending to reflexed. 5-18 flowered racemes. Flowers evenly spaced. Pedicels jointed.

Bracts:

Flora of North America: broadly deltate to obvate (similar to leaves).

Flowers

Hermaphrodite but yield is benefitted by cross-pollination.

Fragrant, most say clove like, Wikipedia says clove or vanilla.

5-18 in clusters

Burke: In ascending or reflexed racemes usually longer than the leaves.

Flower stalks jointed ‘under ovary’.

Calyx golden yellow, cylindric, 5 calyx lobes spreading.

University of Oklahoma: calyx slaverform [narrow tube] … petals inserted at top of calyx tube, ovary 1.

5 petals yellow to orange or reddish, erect.

Flowers ‘evenly spaced’. I don’t see that in my photographs.

Turner: Petals small in flower center, turning orange or red with pollination.

Slichter: Petals about half as long as sepals.

Encyclopedia of Life: 5 yellow sepal lobes spreading at the top with 5 short reddish petals inserted at the top of the tube.

5 stamens equaling the petals, the filaments about equal to the anthers.

Styles joined almost to the stigmas.

Ovary inferior

Flora of North America: Hypanthium yellow to yellowish green, narrowly tubular; sepals not overlapping, spreading, usually not reflexed, golden yellow. Petals connivent [converging and touching but not fused], erect, yellow to orange to deep red. Not conspicuously revolute or inrolled. Nectary disc not conspicuous. Stamens nearly as long as petals; filaments slightly expanded at base. Anthers white.

Fruit

Berries, red to black rarely yellow

Turner: Berries bitter

Numerous seeds.

Branches

Reddish, hairy when young, dark gray, glabrous with age.

Blackfoot Native Plants says it’s a favorite of hummingbirds.

University of Oklahoma: The Kiowa believed that snakes were afraid of the currant bush and used it as a snakebite remedy. Some tribes used the fruits to color clay pots.

The flowers are said to be eaten by gourmets.

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Photos

The usual disclaimer. These are photos that I have. Too often I do not have photos that I need.

Plants

I believe photo 10 is of the earliest R. aureum to leaf-out and the earliest R. aureum to bloom within the park. It is due north of the fireplug on Euclid, near junction pine on the main trail.

The plant in photo 20 is across the street from the fireplug on Euclid. It blooms before any of the plants in the park, perhaps because it gets a little tender loving care. Ribes aureum has been domesticated from early times in the history of this country.

Kathy Lloyd of the Montana Native Plant society says Ribes aureum propagates by rhizomes as well as by seed. Most of the plants I noticed in the park seemed to be single plants. A couple were ‘brushy’ suggesting rhizome propagation. One patch, south and east of north pond, near the high-water is quite large 60.

10-60

April catching evening light on Ribes aureum.

Buds

There is an interesting glandular look to some of the parts. Turner says the leaves have glands when they are young. Flora of North America: Margins of young leaves often with slender extension like multicelled hairs.

So the ‘parts’ with a glandular look must be young leaves.

100-130

Blossoms

The long yellow tube like structure, flaring at the top is not made up of petals. It is a calyx, made up of sepals, modified leaves.

The petals are the short, vertical structures within the calyx.

All sources but Turner list yellow, orange or red color for petals. Turner says the petals turn orange or red with pollination. My photos suggest that red color is at least an ageing process if not, as in Turner, an indication of pollination.

The first of these photos of blossoms show petals that are mostly yellow with some turning. In some photos the sepals are streaked with color.

200-230

The second set of blossom photos show blossoms with distinctively red petals.

300-330

Stamen and Pistil

Flora of North America says the anthers are white. I don’t see white anthers in my photos.

The filaments are said to be ‘about equal to the anthers’. Perhaps this means that they are short. The filaments are said to be ‘expanded at base’. I can’t see filaments in my photos. The Styles are said to be 2 that are fused almost to the stigma. They are said to be ‘about equal to the calyx lobes’ which suggests that they are very long.

The ovary is ‘inferior’.

400-420