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Ribes

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Gooseberry Ribes grossularia (detail).JPG


Plant Characteristics
Cultivation
Scientific Names

Grossulariaceae >

Ribes >


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Ribes is a genus of about 150 species of flowering plants, usually treated as the only genus in the family Grossulariaceae. The genus is native throughout the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere.

Ribes includes the currants, including the edible currants (blackcurrant, redcurrant and whitecurrant), gooseberries, and many ornamental plants. The Ribes currant should not be confused with the Zante currant grape.

Seven subgenera are recognised. A few taxonomists place the gooseberry species in a separate genus, Grossularia, despite the Jostaberry gooseberry/blackcurrant hybrid.

There are restrictions on growing Ribes species in many US states as they are a host for White Pine Blister Rust.


Read about Ribes in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture 

Ribes (probably derived from ribas, the Arabic name for Rheum Ribes, or by some supposed to be the Latinized form of riebs, an old German word for currant). Saxifragaceae. Currant. Gooseberry. Woody plants partly grown for their edible fruits and partly for their handsome flowers, fruits, or foliage.

Unarmed or prickly shrubs with deciduous or rarely evergreen foliage: lvs. alternate, often fascicled, simple, usually palmately lobed and mostly plaited in the bud: fls. perfect or in some species dioecious, 5-merous, rarely 4-merous, in many-fld. to few-fld. racemes, or solitary; calyx-tube cylindric to rotate, like the sepals usually colored; petals usually smaller than the sepals, often minute, rarely entirely wanting; stamens alternating with the petals, shorter or longer than the sepals; ovary inferior, 1-celled; styles 1 or 2 (Fig. 3401): fr. a many-seeded pulpy berry, crowned by the remains of the calyx. —About 150 species in the colder and temperate regions of N. and S. Amer., N. and Cent. Asia, Eu., and N. Afr. The genus is sometimes divided into two: the true Ribes with usually unarmed sts., racemose fls., and jointed pedicels, and Grossularia (p. 1414) with prickly sts.; fls. solitary or in short 2-4-fld. racemes and with the pedicels not jointed. The most recent monograph of the genus is by Janczewski, Monographie des Groseilliers, 1907 (originally published in Mem. Soc. Phys. Nat. Hist. Geneve, 35:199-517, with 202 figs.), with important supplements in Bull. Acad. Sci. Cracovic, ser. B, 1910-13. The N. American species are treated by Coville & Britton in North American Flora, 22:193-225 (1908) under the two genera Ribes and Grossularia. There are also descriptions and figures of the more important species in Card's Bush Fruits, 444-84, figs. 80-109 (1911).

The currants and gooseberies are usually low, upright or less often procumbent deciduous, rarely evergreen shrubs with prickly or unarmed branches, small or medium-sized usually lobed leaves, with rather small solitary or racemose flowers often greenish or reddish and insignificant, but in some species white or brightly colored in shades of red, scarlet, orange or yellow; the fruits also are often attractive and either black, purple, scarlet, yellowish or greenish. The flowers appear in spring with the leaves, and the fruits ripen in June or July, but in R. fasciculatum they do not mature until September and remain on the branches all winter. Most species are hardy North except the evergreen ones; also R. sanguineum, R. Roezlii, R. Lobbii, R. viscosissimum are not quite hardy North. The tender R. speciosum with fuchsia-like bright red flowers is perhaps the most showy species of the genus, though also R. sanguineum, R. odoratum, R. Gordonianum, R. Roezlii, R. Lobbii, R. pinetorum, R. cereum, R. inebrians, R. niveum, and others are handsome in bloom, while some, as R. alpinum and R. fasciculatum, have ornamental scarlet fruits. They are well adapted for borders of shrubberies and, particularly the procumbent kinds, for planting on slopes. R. alpinum is excellent for shady places and as undergrowth. R. alpestre, a strong-growing and very spiny gooseberry from western China, may prove valuable as a hedge-plant. Many species bear edible fruits; the most important are the domestic currant, R. vulgare, and the European gooseberry, R. Grossularia; of less importance are the black currant, R. nigrum, the Buffalo or Missouri currant, R. odoratum, the European R. rubrum and some of the American gooseberries, as R. hirtellum, R. Cynosbati, R. oxyacanthoides, R. setosum, R. inerme. These plants are mostly of easy cultivation; they grow in any moderately good loamy soil, the gooseberries preferring as a rule drier and sunnier positions, while the currants like more humidity and grow well in partly shaded situations. Propagation is by seeds which germinate readily; also by hardwood cuttings in autumn and by greenwood cuttings in summer under glass; mound-layering in summer is sometimes practised; budding or grafting is usually resorted to only, if quick propagation of rare varieties is desired. In Europe, currants and gooseberries are sometimes grafted high on R. odoratum trained to one stem, to form little standard trees. See also Currant and Gooseberry for cultivation.


The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.


Cultivation

Propagation

Pests and diseases

Varieties

Selected species:


Read about Ribes in the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture 

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The above text is from the Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture. It may be out of date, but still contains valuable and interesting information which can be incorporated into the remainder of the article. Click on "Collapse" in the header to hide this text.


Gallery

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References

External links


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