Northern Ontario Plant Database

The Genus Ribes: Gooseberries and currents both belong to the family Grossulariaceae (formerly part of the Saxifragaceae – the Saxifrage Family), but currents have saucer-shaped flowers borne in long racemes, while gooseberries have tubular flowers borne singly or in small clusters in the leaf axils. Gooseberries belong to subgenus Grossularia (Mill.) Richard.

General: A low, straggling, deciduous shrub, 6–9 dm tall. The bark is grayish-brown; twigs finely hairy, but becoming smooth with age (glabrate); a few scattered prickles and glandular hairs are also present; the nodes bear 1–3 spines, to 1 cm long.

Leaves: Alternate, simple, palmately-lobed, petiolate. Leaf blades 3–7.5 cm long, with 3–5 deep lobes; upper surface dark green, with scattered hairs; lower surface paler, finely hairy and bearing glandular hairs along the veins; leaf bases flat (truncate) to heart-shaped (cordate); lobes have blunt (obtuse) to rounded tips and coarsely-toothed (serrate) margins; petiole 2.5–4 cm long, finely hairy and glandular.

Flowers: Bisexual, greenish-yellow, pendant, borne in axillary clusters of 2–3 flowers on glandular stalks (pedicels). Calyx bell-shaped (campanulate), 6–9 mm long, the lobes of the calyx shorter than the tube; petals 5, small, attached between the calyx lobes; stamens 5, slightly longer than the petals; the single pistil with a prickly, inferior ovary. Flowers bloom in May or June.

Fruit: An edible, deep red, prickly berry; globose, 8–12 mm in diameter. Fruits mature in late summer.

Habitat and Range: Dry to moist hardwood forests, rocky soils. The prickly gooseberry is native to eastern North America. It occurs commonly in southern and eastern Ontario, as well as Manitoulin Island, but is not known north of 47° N (Soper & Heimburger 1982).

Internet Images: The Ribes cynosbati website.

The Ribes cynosbati website.

Images of flowers and immature fruits of the prickly gooseberry, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison collection of botany images.

Comparison chart of gooseberry species native to northern Ontario

	Ribes cynosbati (prickly gooseberry)	Ribes hirtellum (wild gooseberry)	Ribes oxyacanthoides (bristly wild gooseberry)
fruit	deep red, prickly	green to purplish-black, smooth
lower leaf surface	hairy, with glandular hairs along the veins, without resin dots	smooth to slightly hairy, without glandular hairs or resin dots	slightly hairy, with glandular hairs along the veins and resin dots between the veins
twigs	young twigs finely hairy, older twigs usually smooth, except densely prickly in var. atrox	twigs smooth	young twigs finely hairy, older twigs with scattered prickles
nodes	with 1–3 stout spines

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