Blackcurrant Blackcurrant The blackcurrant or black currant ("Ribes nigrum") is a woody shrub in the family Grossulariaceae grown for its berries. It is native to temperate parts of central and northern Europe and northern Asia where it prefers damp fertile soils and is widely cultivated both commercially and domestically. It is winterhardy, but cold weather at flowering time during the spring reduces the size of the crop. Bunches of small, glossy black fruit develop along the stems in the summer and can be harvested by hand or by machine. The raw fruit is particularly rich in vitamin C and polyphenol phytochemicals.
Ribes quercetorum inches) long and are divided into a few lobes which are toothed or lobed at their tips. The inflorescence is a raceme of 2 or 3 small flowers. Each flower has five reflexed yellow sepals around a tube-shaped ring of smaller cream-colored petals. The fruit is an spherical, edible black berry just under a centimeter (0.4 inch) in diameter. Ribes quercetorum Ribes quercetorum is a species of currant known by the common names rock gooseberry, oak gooseberry and oakwoods gooseberry. It is native to the mountains and hills of California from the San Francisco Bay Area south into Baja California