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Ribes echinellum
Low, spiny shrub to 3.5 feet tall, forming small thickets. Stems with shredding bark, Leaves less than 1 inch long, simple, alternate, 3-lobed with each lobe toothed, veins spread outward from the top of the leaf stalk into the lobes; Pale green flowers in March, hanging from long stalks and usually solitary, with 5 small petals and 5 conspicuous, spreading sepals; stamens dangle well. below the petals and sepals. The round, glandular-hairy floral tube matures into a very spiny berry, less than 1 inch wide.
Mixed hardwood or beech-magnolia forests on slopes and in bottomlands. This wild plant was photographed at Steven's Creek Heritage Preserve in McCormick County, SC.
This plant is also known as Florida Gooseberry. It is a rare shrub which has only three known populations (two tiny colonies in SC and one in FL). This plant is listed as Threatened both Federally and in South Carolina. It's pollinated by bumblebees. Its leaves emerge in autumn, and it stands bare in the summer.
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