General: Perennial herb from a slender creeping rhizome; stems erect, 5-30 cm tall, unbranched, unarmed, hairy and often glandular, or nearly smooth, the lowest nodes with stipules only.
Leaves: Alternate, deciduous, 1 to 3, long-stalked, the blades round-kidney-shaped, 2-12 cm wide, somewhat leathery, palmately shallowly 5- to 7-lobed, the lobes usually rounded at the summit, saw-toothed, green and smooth to thinly hairy above, paler and hairier especially on the veins beneath; stipules egg-shaped.
Flowers: Inflorescence of a solitary stalked flower atop the stem, the flowers unisexual with male and female flowers on separate plants; corollas white, the petals 5, egg-shaped, 7-15 mm long, spreading; calyces fine-hairy to smooth, 5-lobed, the lobes oblong-egg-shaped, 5-15 mm long, ascending to spread ing in fruit; ovaries superior; stamens many, the filaments linear.
Fruits: Drupelets, large, smooth, coherent in a raspberry-like cluster, at first reddish, then amber to yellow when mature.
Bogs and wet peaty soil in boggy forests in the lowland and montane zones; frequent in BC north of 55degreeN, infrequent southward, absent from SC and SE BC; circumboreal, N to AK, YT and NT, E to NF and S to NY and ME; 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)
