Current, Golden - Ribes aureum

An erect to rounded shrub to 2−3 meters (6−10 feet) tall; stems are reddish, glabrous to finely hairy when young and glabrous, dark gray when older; leaves are mostly three-lobed to less than half their length, and wedge to heart-shaped at base, green to yellow-green, warm yellow in fall; flowers are golden yellow, borne in a ascending calyx with spreading lobes and a narrow tubular hypanthium; Fruit is berries, round, glabrous, dark red to black and sometimes yellow and tart. Habitat includes river floodplains, streambanks, and moist ravines at mid elevations and on well-developed soils. This species can be propagated from seed or cuttings. Seeds are highly dormant and require 12 to 18 weeks of cold moist prechilling of freshly harvested seed, followed by a warm stratification and then continued prechilling to break dormancy.

Greenhouse asexual propagation is by dormant, hardwood cuttings taken from late fall through early spring (one-two year wood), approximately of pencil diameter, wounded, with or without a heel, treated with 5,000 to 8,000 parts per million IBA, at 1:1, vermiculite:perlite or sand media, under mist, under greenhouse conditions (35 to 65% rooting can be expected). Transplants should be placed in field at one to two years of age.

Field propagation by dormant unrooted hardwood cuttings is somewhat successful. Rooting hormones are recommended to improve success rate.

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Last Modified: 07/05/2007