General: Medium shrub, 0.5-2 m tall; stems erect to ascending, some arching back to the ground and sometimes rooting at the tip, armed with short, stiff, somewhat flattened, recurved or sometimes straight prickles, very glaucous.
Leaves: Alternate, deciduous, pinnately compound; leaflets 3 (to 5), egg-shaped to broadly lanceolate, 2-8 cm long, double-saw-toothed and sometimes lobed, sharp-pointed at the tip, greenish and smooth above, white-woolly beneath, the veins and leaf-stalks prickly; stipules linear, 5 mm long.
Flowers: Inflorescence of 2 to 7 stalked flowers in small, open, umbel-like to flat-topped, terminal or sometimes axillary clusters, the stalks woolly and prickly; corollas white, the petals 5, erect, spoon-shaped, 3-5 mm long; calyces woolly and often glandular, 5-lobed, the lobes lanceolate, long-pointy-tipped, bent back, 6-12 mm long; ovaries superior; stamens 70-100.
Fruits: Drupelets, finely and thinly woolly, in a reddish-purple to black, globe-shaped cluster that falls intact from the dry receptacle (a raspberry), the berries 1-1.2 cm wide.
Dry to moist thickets, rocky slopes, clearings and open forests of the lowland to montane zones; common in SW BC, infrequent in SC and SE BC; S to MT, WY, UT, NV 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)
