Golden Currant

[Shrubs with Simple-palmate Leaves]

Family:

Gooseberry Family

Habitat:

Streambanks and floodplains in the eastern Columbia River Gorge.

Characteristics:

1. Woody stem shrub grows to 9 feet.

2. Many small yellow bell-shaped flowers on raceme.

3. Leaf shaped like a 3-pronged fork (with wide tines).

Uses:

1. Ornamental shrub (somewhat susceptible to the wetter conditions west of the Cascades).

2. Popular plant of insect pollinators during the blooming period.

Berry of the Golden Currant at Summer Lake, OR...July, 1996.

Paul Slichter