General: Medium to tall shrub, 1-4 m tall; stems slender, erect to ascending, usually arching, hairy, the young stems ridged, older ones with reddish-grey, peeling bark.
Leaves: Alternate, deciduous, dull green, egg-shaped to broadly triangular, 3-6 (10) cm long, coarsely toothed or shallowly pinnately lobed, often with minute, abruptly pointy-tipped, secondary teeth, squared-off to wedge-shaped at the base, on stalks 10-15 mm long, the upper surface green and coarse-hairy to smooth, the lower surface paler, strongly veined and soft-hairy.
Flowers: Inflorescences diffuse, terminal, pyramidal, somewhat drooping clusters 10-17 cm long, of numerous small (3-5 mm across), short-stalked flowers; corollas white to cream, the petals 5, oval, 1.5-2 mm long; calyces deeply 5-lobed, the lobes about 1.5 mm long, short-hairy on the outer surface; ovaries superior, hairy; stamens about 20.
Fruits: Achenes, 5, tiny (about 2 mm long), light brown, long-stiff-hairy; fruit clusters turning brown and remaining on the plants over the winter.
Dry to mesic bluffs, rocky slopes, clearings, thickets, forest edges and open forests in the lowland to montane zones; common in S BC, disjunct in Bella Coola valley; S to ID, MT 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 montane, Western North American deciduous shrub distributed equally in the Pacific and Cordilleran regions. Occurs in cool temperate and cool mesothermal climates on very dry to moderately dry, nitrogen-medium soils; its occurrence decreases with increasing elevation, precipitation, and latitude. Scattered to plentiful in open and open-canopy, seral (usually Douglas-fir) forests on disturbed, water-shedding sites. Often associated with Mahonia nervosa and Kindbergia oregana. Characteristic of moisture-deficient sites.
