Ribena pure fruit syrups for the manufacture of milkshakes had been done at the Long Ashton Agriculture and Horticulture Research Station in North Somerset using a pectinase enzyme process; Ribena was essentially invented there by Vernon Charley, a scientist at the University of Bristol in 1933. The blackcurrant variety was found to contain high levels of vitamin C. The drink was launched in 1938 under the name Ribena (from the botanical name for the blackcurrant, "Ribes nigrum"). During the Second World War, other fruits rich in vitamin C, like oranges, became almost impossible to obtain in the United Kingdom, due to
Ribes colandina Ribes colandina Ribes colandina is a species of currant found only in Perú. "Ribes colandina" differs from "Ribes andicola" in uniformly dark red flowers (petals red, not orange-yellow as in "R. andicola"), black instead of yellow fruits and wider, more deeply lobed leaves. "Ribes colandina" is a dioecious shrub approximately tall; densely to moderately tomentose from simple, curly trichomes long and with scattered subsessile glands, especially on young shoots and the abaxial leaf surface. Its petiole is long, wide; its stipules well differentiated, united with the petiole for . Inflorescences are terminal on short lateral shoots (brachyblasts); racemes pendent with