Ribes leptanthum
Branches with fruits
The Zartblütige gooseberry or Colorado gooseberry (Ribes leptanthum ) is a small, up to 2 meters tall shrub with white or pale pink flowers and black fruit from the family of gooseberry plants ( Grossulariaceae ). The natural range of the species is in the United States. The species is rarely cultivated.
Description
The Zartblütige gooseberry is a 0.5 to 2 meters high, upright, densely branched shrub and sparrig with finely hairy and verkahlenden branches and one to three 2-19 mm long spines at the nodes. The internodes are reprobate, loosely or densely covered with spines. The leaves have a 0.7 to 2 (rarely from 0.1 to 4 ) cm long, hairy stem. The leaf blade is simple, three-to five-lobed rare to siebenlappig, round or kidney-shaped, rounded, 0.5 to 1.5 rarely to 2.7 inches long, with truncated or nearly heart-shaped base. The lobes are oblong to wedge-shaped, sharply serrated, sometimes inflected with a rounded tip. Both leaf pages are bare or sometimes finely hairy, hairy rarely glandular.
The flowers are white or pale pink. They are available individually or in 1.5 to 2.5 centimeters long clusters of two to four rare flowers with slightly fluffy hairy inflorescence axis. The bracts are lanceolate and 0.5 to 4 millimeters long. The two smaller flower bracts are formed. The flower stems are slightly hairy and 0.5 to 1 millimeter long. The flower cup is greenish white to white, rarely from 2.3 usually 4 to 6 millimeters long, bristly soft on the outside and inside glabrous. The sepals are horizontal, they are greenish white to white, and rarely lanceolate from 2.5 usually 3.5 to 7 millimeters long. The petals are erect, cream with red trim, white or pink, oblanceolate to spatulate - obovate, not considerably inflected, and 2 to 4.4 millimeters long. The stamens are almost as long as the petals; the stamens are just 1.3 to 3 millimeters long and bare; the anthers are cream-colored to purple, oval and 0.5 to 1.6 millimeters long. The ovary is soft-hairy; the pen are 0.7 to 1 mm long, glabrous and almost fused to the scars. The fruits are edible, dark red to black, round with a diameter of 5-10 mm, glabrous, loosely pubescent or glandular- hairy. The Zartblütige gooseberry blooms from April to June and July rarely.
The chromosome number is 2n = 16
Occurrence and habitat requirements
The natural range is located in the U.S. states of Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona and Utah. The Zartblütige gooseberry grows in coniferous forests at altitudes of 1700-3000 meters, on fresh, mildly acidic to mildly alkaline, sandy- loamy to loamy, fertile soil in light to partial shade. The species is thermophilic and moderately frost hardy.
System
The Zartblütige gooseberry (Ribes leptanthum ) is a species of the genus currants (Ribes ) in the family of gooseberry plants ( Grossulariaceae ). It is assigned in the subgenus Grossularia the section Grossularia. The species was described in 1849 by Asa Gray first scientifically. The genus name Ribes derives from the Arabic name of a species of rhubarb. The name was adopted in the Middle Ages because of the sour taste of the berries of some species, reminiscent of the taste of rhubarb, for the currants. The specific epithet comes from the Greek leptanthum derives from leptos for " thin" and anthos for " flower" and refers therefore to the delicate flowers.
Use
The Zartblütige gooseberry is very rarely cultivated.