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Ribes cereum
Also called Squaw Currant, White Currant
Wax currant is a spreading or erect shrub native to western North America, growing from low sagebrush-zone mounds to 2 m tall. It is grown for its aromatic, resinous foliage and edible but tart berries, and tolerates a wide range of soils.
Ribes cereum is a species of currant known by the common names wax currant and squaw currant; the pedicellare variety is known as whisky currant. The species is native to western North America.
The species is native to western North America, including British Columbia, Alberta, and much of the western United States, from Washington, Oregon, and California to as far east as the western Dakotas and the Oklahoma Panhandle.
Some Native American tribes ate the berries. The Zuni people eat the berries of the pedicellare variety, as well as the leaves with uncooked mutton fat or deer fat.
American black currant · Golden currant · Stinky Black Currant · Hillside gooseberry · Spreading gooseberry · Miccosukee gooseberry · Skunk currant · Northern black currant · Whiteflower currant · Prickly currant · Laurel Leaved Currant · Trailing black currant
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Ribes cereum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
