About Ribes hirtellum Michx.
Ribes hirtellum Michx. is a gooseberry species commonly called wild gooseberry or swamp gooseberry. It is native to Canada and the northern United States. Cultivated gooseberries are descended from both this species and Ribes uva-crispa. This species has many other common names: American gooseberry, hairy-stem gooseberry, hairy gooseberry, low wild gooseberry, northern gooseberry, smooth gooseberry, and wedge-leaf gooseberry.
Ribes hirtellum grows in a wide range of habitats. These include wetland environments such as fens, sedge meadows, riverbottom forests, and swamps, as well as stream and lake shorelines, and rocky forest openings and cliff edges. It grows across most of eastern North America: its range extends from Alberta to Nova Scotia in Canada, south to West Virginia in the United States, and west to Nebraska in the United States.
American gooseberry mildew, Podosphaera mors-uvae, was accidentally introduced to Europe and has severely damaged crops of Ribes uva-crispa. Unlike R. uva-crispa, Ribes hirtellum is resistant to this pathogen. It is one of four North American species that have been cross-bred with R. uva-crispa to create resistant cultivars that retain the characteristics of the original R. uva-crispa cultivars. The cultivar 'Houghton' is an example of a hybrid produced by crossing R. uva-crispa with R. hirtellum.
