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Aquatic and Wetland Vascular Plants of the Northern Great Plains

Grossulariaceae - The Gooseberry Family

Ribes L.--Currant, gooseberry

Rather low shrubs with erect to spreading or reclining stems, the stems smooth or armed with nodal spines and sometimes with internodal prickles as well. Leaves alternate, often fascicled on short, lateral branches, the blades palmately veined, palmately 3- to 5-lobed and toothed, rotund to angular in outline; stipules absent or adnate to the petioles. Flowers 1-few in short clusters or few to many in bracteate racemes, produced on short, axillary branches, greenish to white or yellow, perfect, regular, epigynous. Sepals 5, erect, spreading or reflexed, arising from the summit of a tubular to saucer-shaped hypanthium; petals 5, erect to spreading, shorter than the sepals, inserted at or near the top of the hypanthium; stamens 5, inserted on the hypanthium, alternate with the petals; pistil 2-carpellary, styles 2, separate to below the middle or united nearly to the stigmas, ovary mostly inferior, 1-celled with 2 parietal placentae. Fruit a many-seeded berry, usually with the dried floral remains persisting at the tip.

Lead Characteristic Go To
1 Stems armed with nodal spines. R. missouriense
1 Stems lacking spines. Lead 2
2 Leaves dotted beneath with shiny, yellow to brown, resinous glands. R. americanum
2 Leaves without resinous glands. R. triste

24. Grossulariaceae, the Gooseberry Family
1. Ribes L. -- Currant, gooseberry
1. Ribes americanum Mill. -- Wild black currant
2. Ribes missouriense Nutt. -- Missouri gooseberry
3. Ribes triste Pall. -- Swamp currant

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