Audubon® Native American Currant

Fruit for the birds—and for the humans, too! American Currant is an uncommon native fruiting plant that will please your avian visitors with its sweet-tart black berries in summer, and you may want to snack on them as well. Robins and other thrushes, catbirds, bluebirds, and Brown Thrashers are known to sample the juicy fruits. Humans may eat them fresh or cook them into pies or jelly. They’re rich in vitamins and antioxidants! Unlike many other Currants (and the closely related Gooseberries), American Currant is thornless, so you’ll have pain-free picking when the harvest starts.

American Currant, a.k.a. Wild Black Currant, a.k.a. Eastern Black Currant, is a plant of cool northern lands (it is hardy to 50 below zero!), often growing in and near wetlands. Its native range extends from Canada to Colorado, Indiana, and Delaware. American Currant is not as common as it once was, due to an unfortunate story. In the 1920s and ’30s, thousands of Currants and Gooseberries were destroyed because they were found to be an alternate host for White Pine blister rust, a devastating imported fungal disease that kills Pine Trees. American Currant is not as vulnerable to the disease as the more popular European Black Currant, but it is susceptible.

American Currant provides additional wildlife value in the form of creamy yellow spring flowers that appeal to native bumblebees, carpenter bees, and sweat bees. Several species of comma butterflies also use American Currant foliage to feed their young.