Plant · P-453

Clove Currant

Ribes odoratum

Clove currant carries clove-scented, trumpet-shaped yellow flowers with red centers in spring, followed by black berries that ripen from midsummer into early autumn. The fruit and edible flowers vary from plant to plant, with the best forms sweet and pleasant, and both the leaves and the flowers can be turned into tea. It holds on calcareous, chalky ground where few soft-fruit shrubs manage, spreads into thickets by underground runners and suckers, and needs siting away from five-needle pines since it is an alternate host of white pine blister rust.