Grossulariaceae (GRAW-su-lar-ee-AY-see-ee)
Iconic Features
- Shrubs with clustered, palmate leaves
- Pendant flowers with petal-like sepals
- Fruit a berry
Description (Jepson)
- Eudicotyledons (eudicots) – a major lineage of flowering plants including most plants traditionally described as dicots and generally characterized by
- 2 seed leaves (dicotyledon)
- Netted (reticulate) leaf venation
- Flower parts in fours and fives
- Pollen grains with 3 pores (tricolpate)
- Vascular bundles in stem arranged in a ring
- Taproot system
- Plants are shrubs, usually deciduous
- Divided into 2 major groups
- Gooseberries have spines
- Currants lack spines
- Leaves
- Simple (not divided into leaflets); usually palmately lobed (lobes radiating from a single point)
- Alternate (1 leaf at each junction with stem) and generally clustered
- Flowers
- Inflorescence (flower arrangement) a usually pendent raceme (unbranched stem with stalked flowers opening from the bottom up), at the leaf axil (branching point)
- Bisexual, radially symmetrical flowers
- Sepals (usually green, outer flower parts), petals, and stamens (male flower parts) fused at base into a cup-like structure (hypanthium)
- Ovary inferior (below the attachment of other flower parts)
- Fruit a translucent berry (a usually multi-seeded fruit with a fleshy ovary wall), some with spines, often used in cooking and baking
Notes
- Family of a single genus (Ribes)
- Consists of approximately 120 species of gooseberries and currants
- Found in the northern hemisphere and temperate South America
- Scientific name from the former genus Grossularia (now included in the genus Ribes), from the French groseille, “gooseberry”
- Represented by 4 species at Edgewood
General References
Calflora Database. 2014. Berkeley, California.
Calscape. 2018. California Native Plant Society.
Charters, M.L. 2015. California Plant Names: Latin and Greek Meanings and Derivations.
Charters, M.L. 2017. Southern California Wildflowers: Guide to the Pronunciation of Specific, Generic and Family Names.
Corelli, T. 2004. Flowering Plants of Edgewood Natural Preserve (2nd. ed.). Monocot Press, Half Moon Bay, California.
Elpel, T.J. 2013. Botany in a Day: The Patterns Method of Plant Identification. HOPS Press, Pony, Montana.
Flora of North America. efloras.org.
Harris, J.G., and M.W. Harris. 2013. Plant Identification Terminology: An Illustrated Glossary. Spring Lake Publishing, Spring Lake, Utah.
Keator, G. 2009. California Plant Families. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California.
Native American Ethnobotany DB.
Regents of the University of California. Jepson eFlora. Jepson Herbarium. University of California, Berkeley.
Browse Some Edgewood Plants in this Family
