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| Ripe berries of Coastal Black Gooseberry |
In my estimation, the tastiest of
the many types of currants and gooseberries that are found in Western
Washington is Coastal Black Gooseberry (Ribes
divaricatum). With smooth skin and tart flavor, they are a welcomed snack
whenever I can find them. Compare them to our region's other Ribes which all have either daunting
looking spines on the fruit, or strongly resinous flavor, and they have even
more appeal.
The first time I laid eyes on
a Coastal Black Gooseberry was in June of 1997. My high school buddy, his dad,
and I were just getting started on an eight week canoe expedition through the
Broughton Archipelago off the Central Coast of BC. Part of our mission was to
supplement our diet with as much wild food as possible and we had only packed
starchy staples like oatmeal, rice, and beans to force ourselves to forage for
the balance of our diet. With little experience ocean fishing or collecting
seaweeds, I was keen to collect as many berries as possible, but little was ripe
beyond Salmonberries (Rubus spectabilis).
The Red Huckleberries (Vaccinium parvifolium) were starting to
blush when we paddled past the hope inspiring place name Berry Island to camp
at Mound Island. There along the edge of the white shell beach was a plant I
had never seen. I could tell it was related to Prickly Black Currant (Ribes lacustre), but the stems weren’t
covered with fine prickles. Young berries were starting to form so I made a
note to look for it in the coming weeks.
A month later, when hunger had
honed our ability to pull Red Rock Crab out of the shallows barehanded, jig
Kelp Greenling without snagging, peal seaweed off the rocks, bake clams on the
fire, and find the best (by then ripe) berry patches, we returned to Mound
Island to check on those gooseberries. Sure enough, they were ripe and we
happily added the large black berries to our morning mix of rolled oats and
mashed Salal berries. It was a perfect combination.
It wasn’t until much later that I
learned the full name of that gooseberry, and ever since then, I’ve always greeted
it like a friend that treated me lavishly during hard but transformative times.
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| A small Coastal Black Gooseberry on Lopez Island |
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| Note the hairy styles that are fuzed at the base |
Coastal Black Gooseberry is a
small hairy and armed shrub that normally grows 3-8 feet tall. The red-gray
barked stems have up to 3 stout spines at the base of each leaf and normally
lack prickles. The ¼-1 inch long spines are initially green, but redden in
their first year and fade to orange or tan in subsequent years. Leaves are covered
with fine hairs; petioles are ½-1 inch long; and leaf blades are maple shaped
with 5 rounded and toothed lobes, the central being the largest and the lateral
being the smallest (and sometimes absent). Flowers are solitary or born on 1-2
inch long racemes of 2-4 flowers; pedicels and peduncles are sparsely covered
with gland tipped hairs or smooth. Each flower has 5 green-red sepals that
usually curve backwards; petals are pinkish-white with a broad tip; the 5
stamens are white or pink, twice as long as the petals; the 2 pistils are
covered with fine long hairs where they styles are fused, but are hairless
where they split apart near the tip. Berries are purplish black when ripe, round, smooth, and
5/16-7/16” wide with withered flowers persisting on the tips.
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| A range of flowers and young Coastal Black Gooseberry fruit |
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| Range map courtesy of CPNWH |
As the name suggests, Coastal Black
Gooseberry thrives near the ocean. I see it most frequently on backshore dunes
and rocky bluffs within a stones throw of the saltchuck, but it also grows in
open woods at low elevations. It is found from Bella Bella on the Central Coast
of BC southward to Los Angeles with only a few populations east of the
Cascades, most notably near The Dalles in north central Oregon.
The berries of Coastal Black Gooseberry
are traditionally eaten fresh and occasionally cooked, juiced, sauced, or dried
into cakes by virtually all Indigenous people that inhabit the plants range
(Moerman).
The Kwakwaka’wakw—who steward the lands and waters around the Broughton
Archipelago where I first learned this plant—traditionally gather the berries
while they are still green by beating the bushes with sticks and nocking the
fruit onto mats. They are eaten fresh, boiled and slathered with eulachon
grease, and more recently with milk and sugar (Turner and Bell 1973).
The species epithet divaricatum comes from the English word
“divaricate,” meaning forked, branched or spreading, probably in reference to
the berries which are often found in clusters of two, the large spreading thorns, or the shrubs which can spread and form extensive colonies. Coastal Black Gooseberry
is also called Spreading Gooseberry, or Wild Gooseberry. There are two
named varieties: Ribes divaricatum var.
parishii or Parish’s Gooseberry is
found only in California, and Ribes
divaricatum var. pubiflorum or
Straggly Gooseberry is found in both California and Oregon.
