Ribes montigenum

Ribes montigenum

Ribes montigenum has several common names associated with it. The name I prefer is Mountain Gooseberry, because it actually is a gooseberry and it grows in the mountains. And also because it is a good translation of the Latin name, which is often because it was known by a similar common name at the time the Latin name was assigned by modern botanists. It is also known as Alpine Prickly Current, but since gooseberries and currents are distinguished by gooseberries having prickles and currents being smooth, a prickly current is just a gooseberry. Another common name is Gooseberry Current, which is for indecisive people, and another is Prickly Gooseberry, which is redundant.

It is a fairly common shrub in the mountains, usually quite low growing, with 5-lobed leaves and branches densely covered in prickles. Even the fruit has prickles, but these are soft and do not interfere with eating at all. Current flowers have an unusual pattern: the sepals are large and showy (not green), while the petals are smaller, often only looking like fringes at the throat where the sepals spread out. The five sepals in this species are white or yellowish, and the small petals are red and kind of crescent-shaped. But the flowers only appear in the spring; most of the year you will just see the fruit. All currents and gooseberries have the dried, persistent sepals on the end opposite the stem, which may be long and beak-like if the flowers were tubular-shaped, but in this species is sometimes spreading and tuft-like, because the flowers are saucer-shaped.

The taste of these gooseberries is quite good. They are a rather tart when they first ripen to a red color. When they become fully ripe, they turn a slightly darker shade of red, and become much sweeter, often losing all the sourness they had when younger. I think these are one of the better wild currents. When I find a bush with plump and juicy, fully ripe and sweet berries, they are as good as Golden Currents (Ribes aureum), and one of the better berries in the mountains.

With their tartness, these berries make an excellent Mountain Gooseberry Pie. I combined 3 cups gooseberries, 2 grated apples, ⅔ cup sugar, and a bit of lemon juice and vanilla, then baked it in my wife's pie crust. I made a couple of pies, to compare different ways of making it. One pie just had the ingredients mixed cold, and for another, I boiled the filling for about 15 minutes first, in ¼ cup water, then added some flour to thicken. The berries are fairly sturdy, so they keep their shape well, rather than turning to mush when cooked. Both methods were yummy. And, they store well in the refrigerator, for at least a couple weeks.