Gabriola GooseberryAt the beginning of May I spotted a plant with gorgeous, fuchsia-like flowers. It was growing wild in the Gabriola woods, which surprised me.

It turned out to be a native plant called ribes lobbii, or sticky gooseberry. I took a photo, did a bit of research and blogged about it. Then I forgot all about it and returned to my usual fantasies about chocolate falling from the sky. As one does.

Today I passed the bush again, and noticed a flash of red amongst the leaves. Berries! Well, how cool is that? I remember that my native plant books said the berries are edible, so I picked one and ate it. The outside of the berries are sticky, as per the name. The outside of the skin is bitter, so the trick is to break the berry open with your fingers, then eat the flesh of the berry without putting your lips on the berry’s skin. Well worth trying!

50% of our test group really liked this berry. The other 50% of us agreed with the book and pronounced it insipid. But still, nobody spat it out, nobody said yuck and all survey participants (um, all two of us) were glad we’d given it a try.

I plan to eat some more tomorrow. And look, see how pretty this thing is when you open it up:


Gabriola gooseberry