E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

General:
Deciduous shrub, loosely branched, 0.5-2 m tall; stems erect, unarmed, sprinkled with yellow glands; bark sparsely bristly, glandular.

Leaves:
Alternate, mapleleaf-shaped, heart-shaped at the base, 2-12 cm wide, 3-lobed less than half their length, also with two lower, smaller unequal lobes, usually yellowish-glandular and glabrous or hairy, coarsely double-toothed; stalks about equal to or slightly longer than the blades.

Flowers:
Inflorescence of 6-15 flowers in a spreading to erect raceme shorter than the leaves; flower stalks 3-8 mm long, jointed below the flowers; petals white, 1-1.2 mm long, oblong; hypanthium somewhat saucer-shaped and widely flared, 1-1.5 mm long; calyces white, more or less densely crisp-hairy; styles hairy, about equaling the stamens.

Fruits:
Berries, nearly round, black and more or less glaucous, 7-12 mm long, glabrous or with unstalked glands.

Notes:
Two varieties occur in BC:

1. Plants hairy (over the entire lower leaf surface and usually also above); ovaries often glandless; plants common throughout C and E BC...................... var. hudsonianum

1. Plants glabrous to slightly hairy (on the young stems, stalks and veins of lower leaf surface); ovaries glandular; plants common in S BC......................... var. petiolare (Dougl.) Jancz.