Red Currant

Red Currant, not Red-Flowering Currant.  For every 100 of the latter, one might find 1 of the former.  This species is found throughout North America and has been used for food for 1,000s of years although records report only a few tribes using it as food.  Please know that most native NW plants can make humans sick, many can kill.  ~1 in 10, with proper preparation, are consumable; even then perhaps only a part of the plant (root, stalk, leaf, or fruit) is edible.  We read only reports of eating of the Red Currant’s berries.  A shrub and a member of the Grossulariaceae Family, it grows by Kiosk 12.  Pilchuck Learning Center’s sponsored Western Washington State University SAM Project extinction possibility is slight; unlikely to be extinct soon as it is found in other areas of North America.

http://naeb.brit.org/uses/search/?string=Ribes+triste
https://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=RITR 
https://burkeherbarium.org/imagecollection/taxon.php?Taxon=Ribes%20triste
http://www.burkemuseum.org/research-and-collections/botany-and-herbarium/collections/database/results.php?Genus=Ribes&Species=triste&SourcePage=search.php&IncludeSynonyms=Y&SortBy=DESC&SortOrder=Year  
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribes_triste
https://www.plc215.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Kiosk-12.pdf

The red current was mainly used by the Indigenous Peoples as a:

food
materials for bows & arrows
medicine

Comments, content, questions appreciated; email bb@plc215.org

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