General: Deciduous shrub, loosely branched, 0.5-1 (5) m long/tall; stems spreading to decumbent, unarmed, finely crisply short-hairy and with sparse, nearly unstalked glands; bark deep purplish-red.
Leaves: Alternate, mapleleaf-shaped, deeply heart-shaped at the base, 4-10 cm wide, usually 5-lobed nearly half their length, glabrous on the upper surface, more or less crisply short-hairy and glandular below (at least on the veins), round-toothed; stalks equal to or longer than the blades, glabrous.
Flowers: Inflorescence of 6-18 flowers in an erect to ascending raceme much shorter than the leaves; flower stalks 0.5-1 mm long, jointed just below the flowers; petals red to purplish, 1-1.5 mm long, broadly kidney- or crescent-shaped; hypanthium shallowly bowl-shaped, about 1 mm long; calyces greenish-white to deep red or purplish, the lobes 2.5-4 mm long, deltoid egg-shaped, hairy on the back and sparsely glandular; styles glabrous, fused to just below or just above the middle, about equaling the stamens.
Fruits: Berries, egg-shaped, purplish-black, glaucous, 0.6-1 cm long, stalked bristly-glandular.
Moist cliffs, rocky slopes, avalanche tracks, forest margins, forests, and clearings in the lowland and montane zones; common in W and E BC, infrequent in C BC; N to S AK and S YT, E to AB and S to ID and CA.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
A shade-tolerant/intolerant, submontane to subalpine, Asian and Western North American deciduous shrub distributed equally in the Pacific and Cordilleran regions. Occurs on very moist to wet, nitrogen-rich soils (Moder or Mull humus forms) within boreal, cool temperate, and cool mesothermal climates; its occurrence increases with increasing continentality. Sporadic in semi-open and opencanopy forests on water-receiving and watercollecting sites. A nitrophytic species characteristic of nutrient-rich wetlands.
