The less familiar white currant is a colourless mutant of the red currant.

This currant has a distinctive, slightly tart flavour, and they have a comparatively short season, around midsummer. White currents prefer a sunny site and a rich, moisture retentive soil. Plant in autumn to early spring at intervals 1.2- 1.5m apart. Mulch in spring with well-rotted organic matter. Propagate from hardwood cuttings taken in early autumn.

Birds, which are likely to attack both the buds and fruit, are likely to be the biggest problem. Aphids and black currant gall mites may also be a problem. Grey mould may be a problem and coral spot can affect the branches.

Ribes rubrum ‘Versailles Blanche’ is a white currant that has very long clusters of large, juicy sweet berries. A heavy cropper, bearing fruit at the end of June to early July. Grows to 1.2m high by 1.5m wide.

Currants became established in pharmacy as a fruit and sugar drink by appearing in 1498 in the pharmacopoeia of the city of Florence, the Nuovo Receptario; Valerius Cordus’s Dispensatory in 1546; the Augsburg pharmacopoeia of 1564, known as the Augustana, and subsequently in other books, including the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis published by the Royal College of Physicians in 1618. In Linnaeus’s Materia Medica of 1782 the uses of Ribes rubrum were little changed as treatment for fevers, decay, thirst and anger.

From the medicinal viewpoint all these works say much the same things - that red currants are good for diarrhoea, vomiting and fevers, stimulating appetite and satisfying thirst, and that the black ones have no medicinal value. The latter can be stored in their own juice, in sugar, or dried in the sun, so they can be eaten year round. Their description as ‘Beyond the sea’ ‘in French, Dutch and Italian books of this period indicates their recent arrival in Europe. Early attempts to link them to plants described by Galen in Rome in the second century AD and by Serapion the Elder from Syria in the 9th century were soon abandoned.

The fruit is antiscorbutic, aperient, depurative, digestive, diuretic and a laxative. The leaves contain the toxin hydrogen cyanide. A concoction of the leaves is used externally to relieve rheumatic symptoms. They are also used in poultices to relieve sprains or reduce the pain of dislocations.

Their English name ‘Currant’ for their fruits, instead of the pan-European name of Ribes, is a relatively recent invention being first used as ‘Currans’ by John Parkinson in 1629 in Paradisi in Sole and applied because of their overall resemblance in the size and shape of the dried fruits if not in colour or taste to the raisins imported from Corinth and Zante as ‘Currants’, a term which had been in use since 1334, when it appeared as ‘Raisins of Courants’ – a corruption of Corinth.

Used in a wide range of desserts and savoury dishes.

The leaves contain the toxin hydrogen cyanide.