It is native to the mountains and hills of California from the San Francisco Bay Area south into Baja California and east into Arizona.

[3][4][5] Ribes quercetorum grows in woodlands, chaparral, and dry desert slopes and canyons.

It is a spreading shrub producing arching stems up to 1.5 meters (5 feet)long, the nodes along the stems bearing 1 to 3 spines each up to 1.5 centimeters (0.6 inch) long.

Each flower has five reflexed yellow sepals around a tube-shaped ring of smaller cream-colored petals.

The fruit is a spherical, edible black berry just under a centimeter (0.4 inch) in diameter.