North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

["tanis cuff" <tanistanis@hotmail.com>]

I sprouted some seeds of my clove-currant last year, and this year the 
plants grew big enough to show that they mostly have possibly even more 
severe white pine blister rust than their parent plant.  They are junk for 
me, but I thought I should offer them to the list before I compost them!  If 
you don't have any white pines around, these would be a decent landscape 
shrub.  Wonderful fragrance in early spring.

I don't know if these are Ribes aureum or odoratum, but could try to 
determine.  Parent plant is about 6' tall, with branches tending to lean 
over even without fruit weight.  It suckers, and I think would form a 
thicket if not confined by mowing or driveways or etc.  It makes worthwhile 
crops maybe once in 10 years; fruit is pleasant but I don't miss it in the 
off years.  The parent plant was a sucker from a long-neglected planting by 
an old house foundation, early 1900s, so it is hardy for s.WI zone 4.  
Survives in dry sand but performs better in decent soil with extra water off 
a shed roof.

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