Talk:Gooseberry

Despite the previous anonymous edit, it *is* true that the kiwifruit is still referred to as the Chinese gooseberry in Australia, at least in places - I've seen it so labelled in shops - presumably a symptom of Aussie/Kiwi rivalry. seglea 00:02, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Separate Genus?

The article duly notes that some taxonomists prefer not to put gooseberries in Ribes. As a statement of fact I think this is fine. I think it's right that the article not take sides in this debate (though in real life I think most people have already reached the right conclusion on this one <grin>). However, I don't feel comfortable with the quasi-editorialising phrase "this seems inappropriate" in the second paragraph of the article. I suspect this is not NPOV, but it's difficult for me to tell, as I'm not neutral in this debate. Unless anyone has an objection, I'd like to rewrite the relevant sentence in what I hope will be a more neutral way. I'll wait a couple of days for feedback before acting, though.RomanSpa 01:13, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

American Gooseberry?

This article ignores the species native to North America, Ribes hirtellum.

67.169.70.77 (talk) 23:49, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

If I were doing a report on this species, I would not look here. I would need a species native to the USA, like Ribes Hirtellum.

Good point, this page shouldn't be called Gooseberry, it covers only one of several species, a species that is so susceptible to disease that it has had to be cross-bred with several of the American species. Sminthopsis84 (talk) 20:57, 6 May 2013 (UTC)

--WinifredJ (talk) 23:02, 18 November 2009 (UTC)WinifredJ

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Where's the Article?

When I go to [[1]] there's no article. What happened to it?--Toepoaster (talk) 18:15, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Clipped from article

The following was added to a figure caption by 106.51.142.229:

1. The latin name for the Gooseberry is Ribes uva-crispa. 2. It is not the same plant as the Indian Gooseberry, Chinese Gooseberry (Kiwi Fruit) or Barbados Gooseberry (a Cactus) 3. Gooseberries produce fruits in various colours including green, white and red depending on variety. 4. It is not unusual for bushes to crop for at least twenty years. 5. One serving of 100g raw gooseberries contains 40 Kcals. 6. One ancient belief tells how fairies would shelter from danger in the pickly bushes. This is how gooseberries became known as fayberries. 7. Competitive gooseberry growing was very popular, until the 1st world war there were 170 shows in the north of England. 8. Egton Bridge, eight miles from Whitby, is the setting for the oldest surviving gooseberry show in the country, established in 1800. The show is held on the first Tuesday in August each year by the Egton Bridge Old Gooseberry Society. Winning gooseberries can be the size of golf balls. 9. The classic Gooseberry Fool recipe has its origins in Tudor times. 10. The gooseberry has been crossed with the blackcurrent to produce the jostaberry.

I'm only here quickly, but maybe some info here is useful? GyroMagician (talk) 23:23, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Or maybe it was a direct copy/paste from Pickles & Preserves GyroMagician (talk) 23:52, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Which is a fairly poor copy/hack from Egton Gooseberry Show - sigh. GyroMagician (talk) 23:55, 25 December 2012 (UTC)

Etymology

The first sentence in the section "Etymology" reads,

"The "goose" in "gooseberry" has usually been seen as a corruption of either the Dutch word kruisbes or the allied German Krausbeere, or of the earlier forms of the French groseille."

If the final syllable in the Dutch "kruisbes" and the German "Krausbeere", that is, "bes" and "beere", mean "berry", then the initial phrase of the sentence

The "goose" in

should be removed because "gooseberry" appears to be a corruption of the entire word "kruisbes" or "Krausbeere".

If that phrase is removed, then the subject of the next sentence should be amended to read:

"Alternatively, the word "goose"...". – CorinneSD (talk) 21:00, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

Etymology

The following paragraph appears in the section "Etymology":

"It is also possible that it might be a corruption of "goods berry" (since that is what the Old English fēāberige literally means - see above in 'Distribution'), although what connection there may be to 'goods' is no longer known."

Is it possible that the corruption went in the opposite direction? That is, the word "gooseberry" was corrupted to "goods berry" and then to fēāberige? – CorinneSD (talk) 21:09, 2 November 2013 (UTC)

What do they taste like?

Whole article on cultivation, etymology, characteristics...what does a gooseberry taste like" -2001:999:32:103F:246C:730C:F2F8:18DF (talk) 09:33, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

As someone who grows and loves to eat gooseberries, I can honestly only answer that they taste like gooseberries. When not fully ripe they are sharp/tart; most cultivars, especially those with red coloured berries, are quite sweet when fully ripe, although still with a slightly tart under-taste. But that's about all I can say. What do strawberries taste like? What do raspberries taste like? What does rhubarb taste like? How do you describe tastes? Peter coxhead (talk) 12:54, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

I think they taste like kiwifruit. Plantsurfer 14:14, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Certainly there's some kind of similarity to kiwis that aren't very ripe; passionfruit has also been suggested to me, although I wouldn't say that myself. They don't taste like blackcurrants or red currants, although there's some of the underlying sharpness, and like cranberries, they can be used unsweetened to make accompaniments to meat or fish. Peter coxhead (talk) 16:25, 31 July 2016 (UTC)

Name of article needs to be changed

There are two prominent species in the genus Ribes: Ribes hirtellum, the American Gooseberry, and Ribes grossularia, the European Gooseberry.

Since this article is only about grossularia, it should be titled "European gooseberry".

Or better yet, the article should be expanded to include both species, in which case the current title would be appropriate.

I can add material about hirtellum, but I don't know how to change the title.

Any takers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.95.43.249 (talk) 22:47, 19 August 2016 (UTC)

I agree: this article is primarily about the European gooseberry, and should be renamed as such. Or, it should be expanded to include the American gooseberry, which is far more widespread than simply "scattered locations in North America." I grew up in the northeastern US, and Ribes hirtellum was everywhere -- upstate New York; Pennsylvania; Vermont; New Hampshire; Massachusetts, and I even encountered it in Ohio and Ontario. It was both cultivated and wild; we have a bush in our back yars. It is also grown commercially in California, and has been for some years.

Please see https://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/gooseberry.html, among other sources.

70.89.176.249 (talk) 19:41, 2 May 2019 (UTC)

Gooseberry distribution (origin)

It is written down in the article "It is native to Europe, northwestern Africa, west, south and southeast Asia". Check the real native distribution of this species, please, because I don't really think this terrain is such distinct so "Southeast Asia" is rather mistake and it should be "Southwest Asia" instead. As West Asia we may regard western Siberia or just Ural Mountains. The Near East where gooseberry is present is more frequent called "Southwest Asia". Maciek.Wikipedysta (talk) 18:30, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Maciek.Wikipedysta: I agree, but can't find a source that clearly defines the Asian region of origin. There doesn't seem to be a good source providing a synthesis of origin across the wide geographic area implied by reference #3. --Zefr (talk) 20:41, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

I suspect it's not clear what its native distribution was. The Flora of North America entry gives it as native only to "w, c Europe (including Great Britain); n Africa" and introduced into North America and other parts of northern Europe. However, Stace's Flora of the British Isles considers it to be introduced and then naturalized in Britain. Around where I live in the English Midlands, we find apparently wild gooseberry bushes with small fruits that look like the wild species as well as ones much closer to cultivated forms. This source is the clearest I can find, and I think that its distribution "Europe, the Caucasus, and Northern Africa" is as likely to be correct as any. Elsewhere it's likely to be an escape from cultivation. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:16, 3 December 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 12 August 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Not Moved(non-admin closure) Megan Barris (Lets talk📧) 05:11, 28 August 2020 (UTC)

---

Gooseberry → Ribes uva-crispa – Dozens of common plant species are known colloquially as "gooseberry". Gooseberry should redirect to Ribes instead. Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 23:38, 12 August 2020 (UTC) —Relisting. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 01:52, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

Some 200 Ribes species may be called gooseberry. Phyllanthus emblica and Physalis peruviana are also gooseberries. How will a move to Ribes uva-crispa clarify this diversity for non-botany users? Zefr (talk) 02:30, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Sorry if I was unclear - gooseberry should never redirect to Ribes uva-crispa. The proposal is to move the current page content (and edit history), which seems primarily about a specific species, then to do something else with the remaining page called "gooseberry". —Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 02:56, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose I'd rather gooseberry then become a DAB like Currant, or Ribes renamed to gooseberry since it's clearly the WP:COMMONNAME.--Ortizesp (talk) 02:25, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

I think the genus Ribes is a clear primary topic for gooseberry, but I'm less interested in that portion of the move request. Given how common both currant and gooseberry are as names for the genus, I'm not sure there's a clear winner other than to continue to use the genus name itself. —Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 02:56, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose Ribes uva-crispa is a species, and should have a "botanical species article". The cultivars grown as gooseberries for eating (like those I grow) are a distinctive topic for which "gooseberry" is (in Europe at least) the English common name (and for the US too in some sources – e.g. page 2 of [2]). Modern cultivars, like the Hinnonmäki series, resistant to American gooseberry mildew, are likely to be hybrids, particularly between Ribes uva-crispa and Ribes hirtellum (even though listed as Ribes uva-crispa by the RHS). So there should be an article at "Gooseberry" but it should be about the cultivars, not the species, which should have its own article at the scientific name. This is a common approach for crops. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:22, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

An afterthought: if "gooseberry" is too ambiguous in North America, then we could go down the "bird names" route and use the invented "European gooseberry", which can be sourced (e.g. here). Peter coxhead (talk) 06:27, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, "gooseberry" is the common name we use most frequently used for wild species of Ribes in the US and Canada. (I don't feel it's ambiguous here at all actually.) Perhaps a gooseberry cultivars page. —Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 12:36, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Well, it would be very odd to me to use "gooseberry" to refer to the genus Ribes, since many sources put what I call "gooseberry" in Grossularia not Ribes, so blackcurrants and redcurrants are more obvious cultivated examples of the genus. ("Ribena" is made from blackcurrants, which in Britain makes the connection between blackcurrants and the genus clear even to non-botanists.) Quite how we construct an article title that works in an international English encyclopedia isn't clear to me, but definitely not by treating "gooseberry" as the English name for Ribes. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:41, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Sounds like DAB it is, unless someone wants to create a gooseberry page with content representing Ribes subg. Grossularia? (if the only species known as gooseberries are in that subgenus? - I don't know the answer to that at the moment.) —Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 22:18, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

• Support some sort of move. Gooseberry (disambiguation) should take the base title. The history and content of this article pertain to cultivated gooseberries and should take a different title (not sure what is best). A new article at Ribes uva-crispa could be appropriate, but there isn't much content here that is relevant to the species. My initial knee-jerk reaction to seeing this RM was leaning oppose, but then I looked at the incoming links. I was expecting that linked articles would be about culinary dishes and populated places that grow gooseberry. Nope. There are a lot that are about wild growing Ribes species in North America (Yosemite_Valley, Hillsborough, California) and elsewhere Geography of Afghanistan), as well as way too many links from an Indian context that need further disambiguation (Aavakaaya, Srirangapatna). (I was today years old when I realized that there are multiple Phyllanthus species that are called gooseberries in India (e.g. Phyllanthus acidus and Phyllanthus emblica), and the concept of gooseberries in India is probably a huge mess with various vernacular name redirects that should be DABs or SIAs). Hyperik, as a North American, I call prickled species of Ribes gooseberries, and unarmed species currants. Ribes has two major vernacular names that hinge on morphology (but I haven't looked into how that matches up with subgenera). Plantdrew (talk) 03:05, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Yes, outside North America and Europe there are quite different plants to which "gooseberry" is applied, including of course "Chinese gooseberry" for what I call "kiwis". (I seem to remember removing File:Gooseberries in China 01.jpg from the article more than once, because it's not at all clear that these are "gooseberries" in the sense of this article.) It seems that any small greenish and tart fruit that's not obviously anything else (e.g. not citrus) may be called or translated as "gooseberry". (Translation is relevant, because translators are rarely very botanically knowledgeable and make all kinds of mistakes.)

This makes article titles which would otherwise seem appropriate, like "Gooseberry (fruit)", problematic. It does seem to me from Google searches that in a culinary context in North America and Europe, "gooseberry" means "fruit from cultivated Ribes uva-crispa or its hybrids". But I can't think of a title that results from this! (A case with some similarities is "plantain", which has a pretty clear meaning in English-speaking countries where Musa cultivars aren't grown for consumption, but doesn't have such a meaning worldwide, which is why we ended up with "Cooking banana" as the least worst title for Musa fruits normally eaten cooked after a lot of debate and some input from banana researchers.) Peter coxhead (talk) 09:35, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. This title should host an article about the various berries considered "gooseberries". Red Slash 03:08, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Articles should be about one topic, not about names. "Gooseberry" is used, with qualifiers like "Chinese", etc., for completely unrelated fruits which do not constitute a topic, as per WP:NOTDICT. We're clear what the topics are, just not what the best titles are. Peter coxhead (talk) 12:22, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, articles should never be about names. When a word has many meanings, that's the job of a dictionary, not Wikipedia. We can have an article on a genus or family of plants, but that's another matter. As for unqualified "Gooseberry", it's a well-established name for exactly one species, and the other unrelated fruits have been named after it, often with a qualifier. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:02, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

Do you mean a well-established name for exactly one genus? Since there are several gooseberry species in my region (none of which are Ribes uva-crispa), if yr out in the woods, an unqualified "gooseberry" is only ever used for the genus Ribes as a whole, or when being specific about which species of gooseberry doesn't matter. —Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 18:44, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose, largely per Peter Coxhead. Disregarding the other plants such as Chinese gooseberry for now, as as I don't think they elevate to primary topic status, the key takeaway seems to be that in Europe, gooseberries are mostly of the species Ribes uva-crispa, while in America they are often hybrids between Ribes uva-crispa and Ribes hirtellum. As such, with Ribes uva-crispa as the common species to both, and the fruit being very well known and basically the same thing but different cultivars, it makes sense to retain the article at Gooseberry, with discussion on the various regional differences and the hybrid versions there. That seems much more useful than having separate articles at less recognizable scientific titles, on what are fundamentally the same thing. As for the wild variants which are other species of Ribes, I'd also classify those as less relevant per PRIMARY TOPIC. All in all, I don't think the proposed move would be a help for readers.  — Amakuru (talk) 07:25, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
• Comment - Sounds like people want to create a standalone, non-taxon article about culinary and cultivated gooseberries. If someone can close this, I'll get started on splitting out the content about particular taxa. Thanks! —Hyperik ⌜talk⌟ 13:15, 21 August 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose but no objection to Hyperik solution above. In ictu oculi (talk) 07:49, 22 August 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

• The content that relates to cultivated gooseberries remains here, when this is not now the topic of the article. It seems that cleaning up after the RfC was never properly done. Peter coxhead (talk) 17:52, 19 January 2021 (UTC)