Species
+

Ribes alpinum L.

Alpen-Johannisbeere, Alpine currant, Alpine currant, Berg-Johannisbeere (DE)

Climate known 57 photographs
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Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Ribes alpinum, known as mountain currant or alpine currant, is a small deciduous, dioecious shrub native to central and northern Europe from Finland and Norway south to the Alps and Pyrenees and Caucasus, Georgia; in the south of its range, it is confined to high altitudes. It is scarce in western Europe, in Britain being confined to a small number of sites in northern England and Wales.

Text from Wikipedia, “Ribes alpinum”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Ribes

Ribes is a genus of approximately 200 known species of flowering plants, predominantly native to the temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere. Ribes is the sole genus in the plant family Grossulariaceae. The genus includes species commonly referred to as redcurrants, blackcurrants, whitecurrants, and gooseberries. More on Wikipedia ›

The opening of Wikipedia, “Ribes”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Grossulariaceae
Described by
L.
Native to
Denmark, Finland, Great Britain +26
Wild records
665 in range· 466 open

At a glance

Warmest month
21°C
Jul, mean day; nights 14 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
736mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Aug 82 mm (CHELSA)
Light
2–36DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (June to January in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 736 mm a year, wettest August at 82 mm, driest April at 40 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 2 to 36 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -16.7 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Grossularia alpestris Bubani; Grossularia insipida Rupr.; Liebichia alpina (L.) Opiz; Liebichia gottsteinii Opiz; Ribes album Gilib. and 41 more.

Cultivation

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (June to January in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (557 mm of 736 mm) takes 8 months, June to January. Mean temperature moves 19.4 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to July.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 736 mm a year, wettest August at 82 mm, driest April at 40 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

736 mm a year at the habitat, 557 mm of it June to January. Wettest month August at 82 mm, driest April at 40 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 597 mm to 1317 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 2 to 36 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 2 to 36 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 1, the highest 90th-percentile month 38).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -16.7 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -16.7 °C, the absolute minimum -26.6 °C, about 126 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 27.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -4.9 °C in February (across the envelope cells -9.2 °C to -1.1 °C), warmest day 20.8 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -16.7 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 58 to 69% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from -0 °C in Jan to 21 °C in Jul; mean night from -5 °C in Feb to 14 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Jan to Mar, is the three months around the coldest night. 736 mm of rain a year, most in Aug. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 523 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -26.6 °C and the 99th-percentile day 27.6 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-30°-20°-10°10°20°30°frost27.6° 99th-percentile day (undated)-26.6° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125mm rainDLI 2–36RH 58–69 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 523 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C-0 / -3–40 / -4–64 / 0–99 / 6–1315 / 11–1818 / 15–2021 / 18–2320 / 18–2315 / 13–189 / 8–144 / 2–81 / -2–5
Night °C-4 / -9–-1-5 / -9–-1-3 / -6–11 / -1–46 / 4–811 / 8–1214 / 11–1513 / 11–159 / 7–115 / 3–80 / -2–3-3 / -7–0
Rain mm54 / 40–10441 / 32–8544 / 33–9240 / 33–9554 / 38–12371 / 57–11879 / 62–12182 / 64–12367 / 54–11975 / 56–12468 / 55–11461 / 50–117
DLI3 / 2–97 / 6–1515 / 14–2326 / 24–3034 / 32–3636 / 33–3834 / 32–3727 / 25–3217 / 16–248 / 7–163 / 2–102 / 1–7
RH %68 / 63–7267 / 62–7163 / 60–6560 / 58–6158 / 56–6159 / 57–6260 / 58–6261 / 59–6363 / 62–6566 / 63–6868 / 65–7169 / 64–72

Each figure is the median across the 523 grid cells holding the 663 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 620:3936 (58.975, 16.825). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -26.6 °C, 1st-percentile night -16.7 °C, 99th-percentile day 27.6 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 523 distinct grid cells holding the 663 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 620:3936 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 59.00_16.875, lapse-corrected -2 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 39 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeDenmark, Finland, Great Britain, Norway, Sweden, Austria, Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Switzerland, France, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania, Yugoslavia, Belarus, Baltic States, Northwest European Russia, Ukraine, Morocco, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Iran, Turkey· introduced: Ireland, Netherlands, Central European Russia
Kew's description“shrub” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker59.443, 17.796 · in the densest population, 395 records (59% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 665 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 466 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 3 km away. 53 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 2 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population inside the densest 4° block of the 665 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Ribes alpinumRibes alpinumRibes alpinumRibes alpinumRibes alpinumRibes alpinumRibes alpinumRibes alpinum

Photographs: no rights reserved · CC0 (2); (c) Daniel Cahen, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Marcin Dyderski, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Marek Hrušovský, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Matti Vaihevuori Hernández, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Photographs: iNaturalist and GBIF media did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Ribes alpinum, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Genome size, heterochromatin organisation, and ribosomal gene mapping in four species of Ribes
Joëlle Chiche, Spencer Brown, Jean‐Claude Leclerc, Sonja Šiljak-Yakovlev (2003) · Canadian Journal of Botany
Kiegészítések a magyar flóra ismeretéhez
Gábor Matus, Réka Aszalós, Csilla Dorotovič, Martin Hanyicska (2019) · Botanikai Közlemények
Three New Flavonol Malonylrhamnosides from Ribes alpinum.
K. Gluchoff-Fiasson, Bernard Fenêt, Jean‐Claude Leclerc, Joél Reynaud (2001) · Chemical and Pharmaceutical Bulletin
In vitro Antioxidant Effect of the Leaf and Branch Extracts of Ribes L. Species in Turkey
Gülsen Kendir, Ayşegül Köroğlu (2015) · International Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences Research
Blister rust in Romania
I. Blada (1990) · European Journal of Forest Pathology
Glandular trichome structures and chemical composition of the volatiles of fiveRibesspecies from Turkey
Gülsen Kendir, Ayşegül Köroğlu, Gülmira Özek, Т. Оzеk (2018) · Journal of Essential Oil Research

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Ribes 6 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence search API
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not askedcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive)
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media did not answercarried from build of 2026-09-20 (rederive); that build: api.gbif.org not asked: offline re-derivation
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-20; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 13 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.