Montana Field Guide

Swamp Red Currant is a shrub that is up to 1 m tall. It has unarmed spreading to nearly prostrate, straw-colored stems that are glabrous to sparsely hairy and glandular. The alternate leaves have petioles and broadly spade-shaped blades, which are up to 10 cm wide and resemble a maple leaf. Leaves are glabrous above but sparsely hairy below. 6-13 short-stalked flowers are borne in pendant, open, spike-like inflorescences in the leaf axils. The flowers have a glabrous, saucer-shaped, purple or purple-spotted, 5-lobed calyx that is 2-3 mm long and 5 reddish-purple petals that are ca. 1 mm long. The 5 stamens are ca. as long as the petals, and the 2 glabrous styles are united below midlength. The ovary is attached inside the base of the calyx and matures into an egg-shaped, glabrous, bright red berry that is less than 1 cm long.

Flowering in July.

There are many species of Ribes; a technical manual and hand lens are required for positive identification. Ribes hudsonianum, the other native species with unarmed stems and saucer-shaped flowers, has a glandular calyx.

Moist soil of forest openings in the montane to lower subalpine zones.

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).