Montana Field Guide

Trailing Black Currant is a prostrate to upright shrub usually less than 1 m high, with branches that may be pubescent when young but become smooth and deep reddish-brown. Leaves are mostly 4-8 cm across and usually wider than long, and 5-lobed nearly half the length. Infloresences are loosely 8-18 flowered, erect or ascending, and copiously pubescent with stalked glands throughout. Flowers are shallowly bowl-shaped, with a pubescent calyx that is greenish-white too deep red or purplish, and petals that are red to purplish. The berry is purplish-black and glandular-bristly.

Possibly flowering in May, fruit persisting through summer.

Distinguished from the other species of Ribes that lack spines and bristles by the saucer-shaped base of the flower and glandular fruit.

Rocky montane shrubland slopes.

POLLINATORS
The following animal species have been reported as pollinators of this plant species or its genus where their geographic ranges overlap: Bombus vagans, Bombus bifarius, Bombus centralis, Bombus fervidus, Bombus flavifrons, Bombus huntii, Bombus melanopygus, Bombus mixtus, Bombus nevadensis, Bombus terricola, Bombus sitkensis, Bombus occidentalis, Bombus pensylvanicus, Bombus bimaculatus, Bombus impatiens, Bombus insularis, and Bombus flavidus (Plath 1934, Thorp et al. 1983, Colla and Dumesh 2010, Koch et al. 2012, Williams et al. 2014).

STATE THREAT SCORE REASON
Threat impact not assigned because threats are not known (MTNHP Threat Assessment 2021).