Ribes uva-crispa L., Gooseberry

Account Summary

Growth form and preferred habitats

This very familiar deciduous, much-branched, fruiting garden shrub 0.9-1.5 m tall, with its slender but very sharp 3-spined thorns at each node and hairy berry fruit, is native to S, C & W Europe and a neophyte introduction throughout B & I. It usually occurs in damp or shaded ground fairly close to houses – including around ruins or growing on old walls, facts strongly indicating and reflecting its garden origin and bird sown dispersal. At the same time it is often very well established, naturalised and occasionally it is even locally abundant in hedges, stream sides, scrub and deciduous woodland. In a woodland setting, R. uva-crispa can deceptively, 'look, quite native'. In waste ground settings, found far too often, it very obviously is discarded garden material.

Flowering reproduction

The shrub produces its pendulous flowers in groups of 1-3 between March and May. Nectar is secreted at the base of the bell-shaped receptacle and is protected by stiff hairs projecting from the style (Hutchinson 1972). Cross pollination is achieved by various visiting flies, bees, butterflies and moths (Clapham et al. 1962). The fleshy fruit, 10-20 mm, ripen in July and August and are probably taken by Blackbirds and possibly other members of the thrush family, although strangely there are very few sightings recorded in the bird literature of this actually happening (Snow & Snow 1988).

Origin, introduction and uses

R. uva-crispa, previously known as R. grossularia L., is native in many parts of Europe including the Caucasus and N Africa. Forms were selected, brought into cultivation and bred in Europe much earlier than in B & I. The earliest record of their use in Britain dates from a list of trees and shrubs supplied from France to King Edward I in 1275 for planting in the garden at the Tower of London (Roach 1985). Gooseberry was not recorded in the wild until 1763, when it was listed for Cambridgeshire (Perring et al. 1964).

There are said to be over 2,000 named varieties (possibly a gross over-estimate, but certainly a large number), grouped by fruit colour as red, green, yellow and even a 'white' (pale green) form (Vickery 1995; Mabey 1996). Green varieties are less sour and are more suitable for making wine and desserts, while red berried varieties are the most acidic. Berries are capable of fulfilling a wide range of uses, including as sauces and chutneys for various meats, jam, tarts, desserts, wine and brandy making. They are amongst the first fruit to crop in the year, but they often are sour tasting and require a great deal of sweetening with sugar to make them palatable. The abolition of the English sugar tax in 1874 led to a dramatic increase in the commercial growing of gooseberries. The public demand for jams of all kinds has greatly diminished over the last 90 years, and the use of gooseberries for pectin as a setting agent for confectionary and jam making has also disappeared as better sources for this purpose were developed. Nevertheless, breeding research did go on in England to try to produce spine-free and disease-resistant varieties, with some success in the latter case (Roach 1985).

Despite a quite marked decline in its garden cultivation since 1945, the New Atlas records a significant increase in its presence in comparison with the earlier BSBI Atlas survey published in 1962, probably reflecting further garden escapes, seed often being transported by birds, plus a greater interest in recording domesticated plants in the wild than previously was the norm (J.M. Croft, in: Preston et al. 2002).

Fermanagh occurrence

Gooseberry is now known to be a local, quite widespread, if rather infrequent shrub in Fermanagh woods, scrub and hedgerows, particularly on drier soils. In Fermanagh, R. uva-crispa has been recorded in 39 tetrads, 7.4% of those in the VC. As indicated above, all our records are post-1985 in date, since neither Praeger and his generation of recorders, nor Meikle and his co-workers in the 1940s and 1950s, took any notice whatever of this plant during their surveys (Irish Topographical Botany; Revised Typescript Flora). It is thinly scattered throughout the VC, but more prevalent and occasionally more abundant, in the better soils in eastern Fermanagh.

British and Irish occurrence

The New Atlas hectad map shows R. uva-crispa is common and widely distributed throughout lowland B & I, but much more frequently recorded in B & NI than in the RoI. It is largely absent from the ecologically unsuitable wetter, exposed, peaty ground of N & NW Scotland, and rare or absent also from the Scottish isles. The same edaphic reason may well explain its scarcity in W Ireland at least.

Names

The name 'Gooseberry' may well derive from the use of the berries to make a sauce to accompany goose meat. It might also mean a berry that was eaten by geese on farms. The name is not recorded before about 1532 (Grigson 1987). Another English common name, 'Feaberry', may refer to a fruit from a prickly bush, a 'thēfe' in Old English (Grigson 1987).

Threats

None.

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