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Ribes odoratum Wendl.

Buffalo Currant

Modern name

Ribes aureum Pursh

Synonyms

R. aureum sens. Lindl. and other authors, not Pursh; R. longiflorum Nutt.; R. fragrans Lodd., not Pall.

A deciduous, lax-habited, spineless shrub 6 to 8 ft high, producing a crowded mass of stems which branch and arch outwards at the top; young shoots minutely downy. Leaves usually three-lobed, often broadly wedge-shaped or palmate, the lobes coarsely toothed, 34 to 2 in. long, as much or more wide, pale green on both sides, and glabrous, or soon becoming so; stalks glabrous or downy, 12 to 2 in. long, very variable in length compared with the blade. Flowers spicily fragrant, bright golden yellow, appearing in April in semi-pendulous racemes 1 to 2 in. long, each flower with a cylindrical receptacle usually about 12 in. long, sepals slightly less than half as long as the receptacle, recurved after flowering. Fruits roundish, glabrous, dark purple or purplish black, about 716 in. wide.

Native of the central USA from Arkansas and Minnesota westward to the Rocky Mountains; introduced in 1812. This species and R. sanguineum are by far the most attractive of the currants in their blossom. It is very distinct among them in its long, yellow receptacle (‘calyx-tube’).

cv. ‘Aurantiacum Minus’. – Flowers fragrant, of a deeper, more orange shade than usual, and a more compact habit. The flowers are rather small, in this respect resembling those of R. aureum, but the young stems are downy, as in R. odoratum. Plants under this name were distributed by Booth’s nursery at Flottbeck near Hamburg, shortly before 1864, but the plants at Kew came from Dr Dieck of Zöschen in 1889.

f. xanthocarpum Rehd. – Fruits yellow.

R. aureum Pursh R. tenuiflorum Lindl. Golden Currant – This species is very closely allied to R. odoratum and was named earlier. It differs in its glabrous or at most finely downy young stems, smaller flowers (receptacle usually not more than 38 in. long), with spreading sepals more than half as long as the receptacle. The flowers are fragrant; fruits palatable, red, yellow or black. R. aureum has a more western distribution than R. odoratum, extending across the Rocky Mountains to the eastern slopes of the Cascades, and has a variety – var. gracillimum (Cov. & Britt.) Jeps. – in the Coastal Range of California.

R. aureum was introduced to Britain in 1824 but is now rare in cultivation, the plants once grown under its name being usually R. odoratum.


Genus

Ribes

Other species in the genus