Blackcurrant

Ribes nigrum - Blackcurrant

Originally from Sweden and Switzerland, blackcurrant was long cultivated around Paris as much for its medicinal properties as for its renowned digestive liqueur.

This plate illustrates a unique shrub: all its parts emit a strong odor which, while off-putting to some, naturally protects the plant from insect pests.

In the 18th century, the Irish were already infusing its berries in grain spirits to make a punch recommended for colds and sore throats; a use that earned the fruit its nickname "quinsy berry".

The shrub, whose stems reach 1 to 2 meters but are usually pruned shorter, has blackish bark on old branches and powdery fawn on young shoots.

Its leaves, 8 to 12 cm wide, are cut into five unequal lobes ending in glandular teeth; their underside bears golden glands to which the plant's medicinal properties are attributed.

The greenish flowers, washed with a slight violet tint, are arranged in drooping clusters that are less dense than those of the redcurrant.

The fruit, a very dark blackish-purple, ripens in June-July; its hard skin, dotted with white points, releases a brilliant bright red dye when crushed. The melting, bluish-white flesh contains ten to twenty angular seeds.

While the berries are rarely consumed fresh, an excellent syrup for throat ailments and a digestive liqueur that "tempers the ardor of the stomach" without heating like ordinary spirits are derived from them. Infused leaves, aperitive and stomachic, relieve indigestion.

This plate is taken from Pierre-Antoine Poiteau and Pierre Jean François Turpin's Traité des Arbres Fruitiers (Treatise on Fruit Trees), 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 sensitivity, characteristic of the great plates from the golden age of illustrated botany.