About Ribes quercetorum Greene
Ribes quercetorum Greene is a species of currant that has three common names: rock gooseberry, oak gooseberry, and oakwoods gooseberry. This species is native to mountain and hill regions of California, ranging from the San Francisco Bay Area south into Baja California and east into Arizona. It grows in woodlands, chaparral, dry desert slopes, and dry desert canyons. It is a spreading shrub that produces arching stems up to 1.5 meters (5 feet) long. Each node along the stems bears 1 to 3 spines, and each spine can grow up to 1.5 centimeters (0.6 inch) long. Its leaves are lightly hairy and glandular, reaching up to 3 centimeters (1.2 inches) long. Leaves are divided into a few lobes, and these lobes have toothed or lobed edges at their tips. The inflorescence is a raceme that holds 2 or 3 small flowers. Each flower has five reflexed yellow sepals that surround a tube-shaped ring of smaller cream-colored petals. The fruit of Ribes quercetorum is a spherical, edible black berry, with a diameter just under 1 centimeter (0.4 inch).
