General: Deciduous shrub, loosely branched, 1-3 m tall; stems erect, finely hairy, unarmed; bark brownish to reddish-brown.
Leaves: Alternate, broadly kidney-shaped or rounded, shallowly heart-shaped at the base, 2-7 cm wide, equally to irregularly 5-lobed nearly half their length, the lobes rounded, shallowly 2-3 toothed, glabrous above, finely hairy below; stalks equal to or slightly shorter than the blades, finely hairy and sometimes glandular.
Flowers: Inflorescence of 5-30 flowers in a spreading raceme equal to or longer than the leaves; flower stalks 1-5 mm long, jointed below the flowers, glandular; petals light to dark rose, rarely white, egg-shaped, 2.5-3.5 mm long; hypanthium nearly tubular to slightly bell-shaped, 3-5 mm long; calyces pale to deep rose, finely hairy and stalked-glandular; styles fused and glabrous, about equaling the stamens.
Fruits: Berries, round, blue-black, glaucous, 6-9 mm long, usually stalked-glandular.
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)
Shade-intolerant, submontane to subalpine, Western North American deciduous shrub distributed more in the Pacific than the Cordilleran region. Species occurs in maritime to submaritime cool mesothermal climates on very dry to moderately dry, nitrogen-medium soils; their occurrence decreases with increasing elevation, precipitation, and continentality. Sporadic to scattered in early-seral communities and open-canopy Douglas-fir forests on water-shedding sites. Characteristic of moisturedeficient sites.
