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Mountasin currant

 

 

 

Mountain currants are not demanding as regards habitat, growing on poorly fertile and arid sand dunes or inhabiting humid broadleaf or flood plain forests but also dust-dry heath forests. Usually we find mountain currants as individually growing shrubs, up to a meter and a half high; only in West and North-West Estonia we can find mountain currants growing abundantly together.

 

The leaves of the mountain currant are almost twice smaller than the leaves of the redcurrant bushes growing in gardens. As regards taste they are also completely different – the quite edible berries of the mountain currant lack acidity, thus the berries seem without taste and somewhat insipid. The berry clusters are small too, they have three, more rarely two or four berries.

 

In the mixed forests of our mainland the downy currant can occasionally be found. Its fruits resemble the redcurrant berry clusters (racemes) in shape as well as taste, but by and large in the forest the downy currant shrubs do not set fruit well.   

 

A pleasant surprise is offered by the red, black and white currant bushes that have gone wild and can be found in nature; their fruits as well as leaves are generally smaller but the taste is similar to the cultivated varieties.