Ribes triste

Ribes triste, known as the northern redcurrant, swamp redcurrant, or wild redcurrant, is an Asian and North American shrub in the gooseberry family.

Description

It grows to tall, with a lax, often creeping branches. The leaves are alternate, across, hairy below, and palmate with 3–5 lobes.

From June to July, 6–13 small, purplish flowers are displayed in pendulous racemes, Template:Cvt long. The axis of the raceme is glandular. The fruit is a bright red berry, without the hairs that some currants have; it is rather sour.

Distribution and habitat

Ribes triste is widespread across Canada and the northern United States, as well as in eastern Asia (Russia, China, Korea, Japan). It grows in wet rocky woods, swamps, and cliffs.

As a weed

Ribes is listed a plant pest in Michigan and the planting of it in certain parts of the state is prohibited.

Conservation

It is listed as endangered in Connecticut and Ohio, and as threatened in Pennsylvania.

Uses

Culinary

The berries are edible. Alaska Natives eat them raw and make them into jam and jellies. Eskimos eat the berries and the Inupiat eat them raw or cooked, mix them with other berries which are used to make a traditional dessert. They also mix the berries with rosehips and highbush cranberries and boil them into a syrup. The Iroquois mash the fruit, make them into small cakes, and store them for future use. They later soak the fruit cakes in warm water and cooked them a sauce or mixed them with corn bread. They also sun dry or fire dry the raw or cooked fruit for future use and take the dried fruit with them as a hunting food. The Ojibwe eat the berries raw, and also preserve them by cooking them, spreading them on birch bark into little cakes, which are dried and stored for winter use. In the winter, they often eat the berries with cooked sweet corn. They also use the berries to make jams and preserves. The Upper Tanana eat the berries as food.

Medicinal

The Ojibwe take a decoction of the root and stalk for kidney stones ('gravel') and a compound decoction of the stalk to curtail menstruation; the leaves are used as a 'female remedy'. The Upper Tanana use a decoction of the stems without the bark as a wash for sore eyes.