Data provided by the participants of the Consortium of California Herbaria

View additional distribution information on the Jepson eflora

Ribes divaricatum is a species of currant known by several common names, including spreading gooseberry, coast black gooseberry, and wild gooseberry. It is native to the forests, woodlands, and coastal scrub of western North America from British Columbia to California. It is a shrub sometimes reaching 3 meters in height with woody branches with one to three thick brown thorns at leaf nodes. The leaves are generally palmate in shape and edged with teeth. The blades are up to 6 centimeters long and borne on petioles. The flower cluster is a small cluster of hanging flowers, each with reflexed purple-tinted green sepals and smaller, lighter petals encircling long, protruding stamens. The fruit is a berry up to a centimeter wide which is black when ripe. It is similar to Ribes lacustre and Ribes lobbi, but the former has smaller, reddish to maroon flowers and the latter has reddish flowers that resemble those of fuchsias and sticky leaves. The fruit was food for a number of Native American groups of the Pacific Northwest, and other parts of the plant, especially the bark, was used for medicinal purposes.

Plant type

Shrub

Size

6 - 11 ft Tall
3 ft Wide

Dormancy

Winter Deciduous

Calscape icon
Color

Red, Pink, Purple, Green

Flowering season

Spring

Special uses

Deer resistant

Sun

Full Sun, Partial Shade

Water

Low

Ease of care

Moderate

Soil drainage

Fast

Soil description

Moisture retentive but well-drained loamy soil of at least moderate quality.
Soil PH: 4.8 - 8.2

Site type

Bluffs

Plant communities

Coastal Sage Scrub, Foothill Woodland, Lodgepole Forest, Mixed Evergreen Forest, Red Fir Forest, Forest, Subalpine Forest, Yellow Pine Forest, Wetland-Riparian

Hummingbirds
Bats
Birds
Bees
Caterpillars
Butterflies

Butterflies and moths supported

1 confirmed and 85 likely

Confirmed Likely

Oreas Comma

Polygonia oreas

Agrochola pulchella

Agrochola purpurea