Currant - fleshy fruit

Ribes carneum - Fleshy Red Currant

In the mid-19th century, this variety of currant was as intriguing as it was disappointing: with its delicate pale red, almost flesh-colored hue, it was only valued in the collections of the curious.

Less productive than its white and red cousins, it remained a rarity, cultivated for its chromatic singularity rather than its yield.

Poiteau himself, a rigorous botanist, confessed in his writings that he had never been able to identify the famous "pearl currant" mentioned by other authors, convinced that it was merely a well-ripened white currant, transfigured by a certain degree of maturity.

Ribes carneum is distinguished by the particular hue of its clusters: an attenuated, almost pinkish red, which gives it its name "carnée" (fleshy). Unlike common varieties, this currant bush offers modest production and fruits deemed of inferior quality by 19th-century gardeners.

Its cultivation requires the same care as other currants—fresh soil, partial shade exposure—but its limited yield explains why it never conquered commercial kitchen gardens.

It was rarely found except among enthusiasts of rare varieties, in botanical gardens, or private collections, where it was preserved more for its botanical interest than for its taste qualities. This discretion makes it a valuable testimony today to the fruit diversity cultivated in the 19th century.

This plate is taken from Pierre-Antoine Poiteau's Traité des Arbres Fruitiers, a botanical encyclopedia published between 1807 and 1835, a major reference in 19th-century naturalistic illustration.

It combines the rigor of scientific drawing with a rare artistic sensibility, characteristic of the great plates from the golden age of illustrated botany.