Wild currants

Photo: Arne Ader
Translation: Liis
Mountain currant
 
Mountain currant     Magesõstar        Ribes alpinum
 
The most common of our wild currant species is an unpretentious and extremely adaptive shrub. It can grow in sand dunes and shore pebbles as well as fresh broadleaf forests or floodplain forests.
 
The mountain currant has a similarity with the redcurrant shrubs growing in gardens even regarding the shape of the shrub:  somewhat smaller leaves, with three, rarely five lobes; the colour of the fruits is identical but we won’t see the familiar long and hanging trusses. The fruits of mountain currants are quite edible but insipid, flat, sickly sweet or tasteless – however one would like to put it. Birds anyway eat them and spread the seeds.
 
Blackcurrant    Mustsõstar      Ribes nigrum
 
We find blackcurrants locally in nature – mostly at river banks and fresh broadleaf forests but sometimes also at the seashore. This shrub also goes wild in gardens. On crushing the leaves or shoots between one’s fingers the familiar smell is immediately perceived. The trusses of berries are more sparse and the fruits smaller.
 
Downy currant   Karvane sõstar       Ribes spicatum
 
We can find ”downy currants” locally – in broadleaf forests and wooded meadows. Our wild ”redcurrant” has berries with the same sour taste as the garden ones but they set fruit poorly in the forest. Leaves are a little more rounded than those of the redcurrant: on the top side sparsely, on the underside densely hairy – hence the name.
 
An undemanding ornamental shrub that only rarely naturalizes  - Golden currant (Ríbes aúreum).
Grows upright, young shoots have a reddish colour and are hairy. Fruits taste good, brownish red, sometimes also black. In autumn the leaves turn prettily red.
 
On rare occasions we can find the  alpine currant (Ribes lucidum) growing in mixed forests (it is regarded as a subspecies of the mountain currant by some authorities). The leaves of this currant are narrower which is underlined by the long middle lobe. The round red fruits simply have an unpleasant taste.
 
Red currants  (Ríbes rúbrum) as well as white currants (Ríbes rúbrum f. leucocarpum) can go wild. They often mark the site of a former farmstead, and they are a pleasant surprise to nibble on forest verges and roadsides.


 

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