Wax Currant               ri-BEEZ SEE-re-um

• Deciduous multistemmed shrub, 4-6 ft (1-2 m) tall, densely branched, branches without bristles or thorns.  Leaves rounded, 1-4 cm wide with 3-5 indistinct lobes, margins crenate, white waxy, gray-green, nearly smooth upper surface and downy gray below.  Flowers tubular, 6-8 mm long, greenish-white to pinkish.  Fruit globose, red to orange, shiny, listed in the literature as unpalatable to good flavor.
• Sun.
• Hardy to USDA Zone 5?      Native from British Columbia to northern California east to Montana, Nebraska, Colorado, and New Mexico.  Its habitat are dry woods and rocky slopes; found in eastern Oregon and Washington and the Siskiyous.  [Hitchcock and Cronquist (1973) list three varieties, cereum, inebrians and colubrium.]
• Oregon State Univ. campus: north side of Peavy Hall, in front of the Dawn Redwood