English: Gooseberry; European gooseberry; Goosegogs; Fea-berry.
Dutch: Kruisbes; Kruisbezie.
German: Krausbeere.
French: Groseille; Groseille à maquereau, translated as mackerel berries.
Name: from curl, crisped, in Latin as grossularia; uva-crispa means curved grape.
Region: Europe, Caucasus, northern Africa; naturalized widely, in North America.
Habitat: copses, hedgerows, about old ruins.
Taxonomy: a species in the subgenus Grossularia.
Content: vitamin A, vitamin B, vitamin C, sodium, calcium.
Culture: Gooseberry bush was 19th-century slang for pubic hair; saying that babies are "born under a gooseberry bush".
BotanyShrubs; straggling; growing to 1.5 metres in height and width.
Stem: branches being thickly set with sharp spines, standing out singly or in diverging tufts of two or three from the bases of the short spurs or lateral leaf shoots.
Flowers: bell-shaped; singly or in pairs, axillary
leaves the groups of rounded, deeply crenated 3 or 5 lobed.
Fruit: berries; edible, good flavour; green, but there are red to purple, yellow, and white variants.