General: Low to medium shrub, 0.3 to 1.5 m tall, spreading by extensive rhizomes, sometimes forming thickets; stems spindly to stout, erect to arching, usually covered with numerous straight, bristly prickles of various sizes, but twigs of the year often not prickly; mature stems reddish- to greyish-brown.
Leaves: Alternate, deciduous, odd-pinnately compound, the axis usually hairy and glandular; leaflets usually 5 or 7, oblong-elliptic, 2-5 cm long, coarsely double-toothed, the teeth often gland-tipped, more or less rounded at the base, usually somewhat hairy on the underside; stipules hairy, glandular on the margins.
Flowers: Inflorescence of usually single, occasionally 2 or 3, stalked flowers on lateral branchlets; corollas pink, saucer-shaped, (4) 5-7 cm across, the petals 5, 2-3 cm long; calyces smooth, 5-lobed, the lobes lanceolate, long-tapering and narrowing then flaring below the tip, persistent, becoming erect and converging in fruit; ovaries superior but enclosed in the urn-shaped floral tube (hypanthium); stamens numerous.
Fruits: Achenes, 15 to 25, stiffly long-hairy on one side or towards the tip, enclosed by the fleshy hypanthium, which ripens into a scarlet to purplish, globe- to pear-shaped or ellipsoid hip 1-2 cm long.
Dry to moist open forests, thickets, open rocky or grassy slopes, river terraces, streambanks and clearings in the lowland to subalpine zones; common throughout BC, east of the Coast-Cascade Mountains; circumboreal, N to AK, E to PQ and S to NY, MN, CO and NM; Eurasia.
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-intolerant, montane to subalpine, circumpolar deciduous shrub [transcontinental in North America (rare in the Pacific region)]. Occurs in continental boreal and cool temperate climates on moderately dry to fresh, nitrogen-medium soils. Common in openÂcanopy forests on water-shedding and waterÂreceiving sites in the eastern coast-interior ecotone. Characteristic of continental forests.
