PlantFiles: Clove Currant, Buffalo Currant, Yellow-flowered Currant, Golden Currant, Missouri Currant
Ribes odoratum

I bought a couple of these a few years back. This year they have borne fruit, which ripened to a lovely rich sweet flavor. They are not only pretty, they are my favorite currant flavor to date!

I live in Zone 5, but it is hot, dry (we keep our currants watered), windy, very cold and windy in the winter. I usually stick with zone 4 and tougher plants. My Clove Scented Currants are thriving.

I first came in contact with this plant at my nephew's house. I smelled it from across the yard and followed my nose. The scent is truly amazing. My nephew's was planted outside his window, though, and he said it got overwhelming when the bush was in full bloom.

I had to have one of my own, so I bought one from a mail order nursery last spring. It was about 4" tall. I sat it in the shade until I could plant it...and promptly forgot about it. This spring I re-discovered it, and thought it was a goner. It had been tipped over at some point and half the soil was gone out of the pot. I sat it with my other containers hoping against hope that it was alive. It is! It's blooming now, May 23, (at about 5" tall) and smells just as delicious as I remember.

I will get it in the ground soon (I promise). Something this tough, with this lovely of a scent, deserves a place in my garden. Finally.



Zone 4b.

I had no idea what was popping up under my Elm tree. Now it has spread to at least five, the oldest at two feet high. This year, I noticed it has popped up under my Birches about 15-20 feet away. I have no idea where it came from. At first I thought it was some kind of columbine as the leaves are similar when they are young. I decided to let them grow to see what would happen. I kinda liked the green shrub growing near the tree and behind my columbines. This year, the oldest plant bloomed a yellow flower that was very sweet. The flower had a clove smell. I went to the Internet to find the name, finally very curious. At first I thought it was a kind of gooseberry but the leaves weren't right. It was this website that answered all my questions! It must be a clove currant. I am excited to see/eat the berries as they are already beginning to enlarge from the flower (if all my birds don't get them first). What is amazing is the plant had to come from seed, but I live in Alamosa, Colorado where it is very dry and I am surrounded by sage-like bush that grows everywhere here. I have no idea where the seeds came from....amazing. My only concern is if there is a similar plant out there that might be poisonous.

The blossoms have a wonderful perfume, but I like the taste of the berries even better. They turn black before they are ripe, so leave them a week or two and you have a delicious treat in store.

The fragrant yellow flowers have top blue-green leaves that turn yellow in the fall.
This adaptable plant is good in sun or shade and is hardy in Zones 4 to 6 and sometimes 7.
Avoid using this plant near white pines, since it is an alternate host of the deadly disease .. white pine blister rust.

I grow this wonderful clove-scented plant in Southeast Missouri, where it's fragrance drifts across the yard in early spring. It has never set any fruit for some reason.
It has suckered into a large thicket that I contain by mowing. The plant I have came from my husband's grandmother's house near Mingo National Wildlife Area and she told me it sprouted from a dropped bird seed. It is one of my all-time favorite plants for fragrance. I had to keep it watered when I first transplanted it back in 1988, but I never need to water it anymore, no matter how dry it gets here in August. It is growing on the northern exposure of a wooded area, and does not sucker back into the shade, only out toward the sun. I have no insect or disease problems with it at all.

The ribes species was banned from import to the US for many decades because it was linked to causing pest infestations to indigenous firs and pines. Now that the ban has been lifted we can again enjoy the currant and gooseberry fruits for jams and wines, or for just eating off the bush. Watch out for those barbs! Suggestion: use a fork to harvest small currants.

And if you like the wonderful fragrance of the Clove Currant you'll love its delicious bronze gooseberry fruit.

This plant scents the air around it for quite a distance over a fairly long flowering season in the spring. It is a little untidy in habit, but responds well to trimming.
It has the added bonus of attractive autumn leaf colour.
It grows away well once established in my heavy clay soil in Kent UK

Very early flowering shrub, light yellow flowers with intense perfume. Makes an effective hedging plant.