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CHAPTER 8 Currants, Succulents and Roses
Dicotyledonous flowering plants in the order Rosales and families Grossu-
lariaceae (currants), Crassulaceae (stonecrops), Saxifragaceae (saxifrages)
and Rosaceae (roses) are included in this chapter.
Grossulariaceae
Ribes rubrum Linnaeus
red currant
western Europe; introduced elsewhere
Ribes nigrum Linnaeus
black currant
northern Europe and Asia, and mountains to their south; introduced
elsewhere
Ireland has supplied the sole record of the herbal use expressly of ‘wild cur-
rant’: in Cavan the leaf of that has been rubbed on parts affected by ringworm.^1
Whichever of the two species,Ribes rubrumorR. nigrumwas meant—and it
could have been either or both—‘wild’ must have meant merely bird-sown
among native vegetation from some cultivated source. Chance, isolated bushes
that spring up in this way have been traditionally regarded with a certain awe,
as their origin seems mysterious, and that alone would be sufficient to account
for a preference for wild-growing currants for medicinal purposes.
Though both black and red currants are very rarely found far from habi-
tations in Ireland, that is less true of Britain. The much lengthier history of
fruit-growing in the latter accounts for that in large part, but there is weighty
botanical authority for the view that both species are also indigenous there in