Ribes montigenum

Western prickly gooseberry

Family: Grossulariaceae · Type: shrub · Native

Western prickly gooseberry is a California native shrub found in the Klamath Ranges, northern Coast Ranges, Cascade Range, Sierra Nevada, Transverse Ranges, San Jacinto Mountains, Warner Mountains, and northern Desert Mountains in subalpine and alpine habitats at elevations of 800 to 4,000 meters. Flowering from June to July, this plant produces red and pale yellow to white-green flowers in clusters with more than 5 blooms. Growing with spreading or decumbent stems less than 1 meter tall, it features 1 to 5 nodal spines and bristly internodes. Its leaves are glandular-hairy, generally 1.5 to 2.5 centimeters wide and deeply lobed nearly to the base. The fruit is a small 4 to 5 millimeter orange-red berry covered in glandular bristles.

Habitat: Many subalpine, alpine habitats

Bloom period: Jun-Jul

Elevation: 800-4000 m

Bioregions: KR, NCoRH, CaRH, SNH, TR, SnJt, Wrn, n DMtns

California counties: Riverside, Los Angeles, Alpine, El Dorado, Fresno, Modoc, Tulare, Ventura, Mono, Inyo, Madera, Nevada, Placer, San Bernardino, Tuolumne, Trinity, Mariposa, Amador, Siskiyou, Shasta, Lassen, Tehama, Sierra, Plumas, Del Norte

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.