Ribes cereum
Encyclopedia
Ribes cereum is a species of currant
Ribes
Ribes is a genus of about 150 species of flowering plants native throughout the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. It is usually treated as the only genus in the family Grossulariaceae. Seven subgenera are recognized....
known by the common names wax currant and squaw currant (R. c. var. pedicellare is known as whisky currant). It is native to western North America, including British Columbia
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
and much of the western United States, where it grows in several types of habitat, including mountain forests in alpine climate
Alpine climate
Alpine climate is the average weather for a region above the tree line. This climate is also referred to as mountain climate or highland climate....
s, sagebrush, and woodlands. It can grow in many types of soils, including sandy and clay substrates, serpentine soil
Serpentine soil
A serpentine soil is derived from ultramafic rocks, in particular serpentinite, a rock formed by the hydration and metamorphic transformation of ultramafic rock from the Earth's mantle....
s, and lava beds
Lava plain
A lava plain, also called a lava field or lava bed, is a large expanse of nearly flat-lying lava flows. Such features are generally composed of highly-fluid basalt lava, and can extend for tens or even hundreds of miles across the underlying terrain...
. This is a spreading or erect shrub
Shrub
A shrub or bush is distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and shorter height, usually under 5–6 m tall. A large number of plants may become either shrubs or trees, depending on the growing conditions they experience...
growing 20 centimeters to 2 meters tall. It is aromatic, with a "spicy" scent. The stems are fuzzy and often very glandular, and lack spines and prickles. The leaves are somewhat rounded and divided into shallow lobes which are toothed along the edges. The leaves are hairless to quite hairy, and usually studded with visible resin glands, particularly around the edges. The inflorescence
Inflorescence
An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Strictly, it is the part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed and which is accordingly modified...
is a clustered raceme
Raceme
A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called pedicels — along the axis. In botany, axis means a shoot, in this case one bearing the flowers. In a raceme, the oldest flowers are borne...
of 2 to 9 flowers. The small flower is tubular with the white to pink sepal
Sepal
A sepal is a part of the flower of angiosperms . Collectively the sepals form the calyx, which is the outermost whorl of parts that form a flower. Usually green, sepals have the typical function of protecting the petals when the flower is in bud...
s curling open at the tips to form a corolla-like structure. Inside there are minute white or pinkish petals, five stamen
Stamen
The stamen is the pollen producing reproductive organ of a flower...
s, and a two protruding green styles
Gynoecium
Gynoecium is most commonly used as a collective term for all carpels in a flower. A carpel is the ovule and seed producing reproductive organ in flowering plants. Carpels are derived from ovule-bearing leaves which evolved to form a closed structure containing the ovules...
. The fruit is a rather tasteless red berry
Berry
The botanical definition of a berry is a fleshy fruit produced from a single ovary. Grapes are an example. The berry is the most common type of fleshy fruit in which the entire ovary wall ripens into an edible pericarp. They may have one or more carpels with a thin covering and fleshy interiors....
up to a centimeter wide, with a characteristically long, dried flower remnant at the end.