Flora of New Zealand Series

gooseberry

Deciduous, armed, non-aromatic shrub usually 0.5-1.5-(2.5) m high; nodes furnished with (1)-3, stiff, straight spines; branches and shoots spreading to erect, glabrous except when young. Lvs plicately folded in bud, with petioles to 5 cm long, not clasping at base; lamina ± broadly deltoid to subreniform, (1.5)-2-6 × 2-7 cm, usually smaller on flowering stems (where the lvs are on short spurs), palmately-lobed, usually hairy beneath, sometimes glabrate, flat and slightly shining above; base truncate to cordate; lobes shallow to deep, 3-5, broadly ovate, oblong-ovate or obovate, with secondary lobes, deeply toothed. Fls solitary or in clusters of 2-4, not fragrant. Hypanthium 3-4 mm diam., ± globose, pale greenish, glandular. Sepals 3-6 mm long, oblong or elliptic-oblong, green, often with red flush or red margin, ± hairy outside, reflexed at anthesis. Petals 1.5-2 mm long, suborbicular or broadly obovate, white. Filaments 2-3 mm long. Fr. 10-25 mm diam. (to 30 mm in cultivation), globose to broadly or oblong-ellipsoid, green, yellow or sometimes dark red, translucent, lacking bloom, hispid and sometimes with soft hairs, or glabrous; flesh becoming sweet.

N.: Wairarapa and Wellington areas; S.: Marlborough (Molesworth area), Canterbury and Otago (scattered through coastal and inland areas, abundant in some higher inland localities), Southland (Otanomomo).

Europe, N. Africa 1872

Roadsides, hillsides, grass and scrub-covered areas, often in gullies and on rocky outcrops and forest margins, also a common but scattered garden weed.

FL Aug-Nov FT Nov-Feb.

Gooseberries are abundant in cultivation in cooler areas of N.Z. and a number of cvs are grown, these being mainly distinguishable by fr. characters, especially colour, size and taste. Wild populations cannot be ascribed to particular cvs although more than one is presumably involved. In some populations there is a wide range of fr. form, green, yellow, dark red, globose to oblong-ellipsoid, hispid, softly hairy or glabrous ones all occurring together. The sp. has also been known as R. grossularia in N.Z.

Fig. 74. Ribes uva-crispa. © All rights reserved. [Image: 4X61]