General: Medium to tall shrub, 1-2.5 m tall, from extensive rhizomes, often thicket-forming; stems erect to ascending, unarmed, young growth fine-hairy and stalked-glandular, becoming smooth eventually; bark grey, flaking-off.
Leaves: Alternate, deciduous, long-stalked, mapleleaf-shaped, 10-20 cm across, palmately 3- to 7-lobed, double-saw-toothed, green and smooth to finely glandular-fuzzy on both surfaces, the stalks with reddish glandular hairs; stipules lanceolate, 6-13 mm long.
Flowers: Inflorescence of 2 to 10 stalked flowers in small, flat-topped, long-stalked, terminal clusters, the flower-stalks glandular-hairy; corollas white, bowl-shaped, the petals 5, spreading, egg-shaped, 10-30 mm long; calyces densely hairy and usually stalked-glandular, 5-lobed, the lobes egg-shaped with long tail-like tips, spreading, 10-20 mm long; ovaries superior; stamens numerous.
Fruits: Drupelets, velvety-hairy, coherent in a red, hemispheric cluster that falls intact from the dry receptacle (raspberry-like), the berries 1-1.5 cm wide. vol4_8
Moist to mesic open forests, thickets, streambanks, clearings and roadsides in the lowland to subalpine zones; common throughout S BC, south of approximately 56oN; N to S AK, E to ON and S to MI, MN, N MX, NM and CO.
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-tolerant/intolerant, submontane to subalpine, North American deciduous shrub distributed equally in the Pacific, Cordilleran, and Central regions. Occurs on nitrogen-rich soils within boreal, temperate, and mesothermal climates; its occurrence decreases with increasing elevation and latitude and increases with increasing continentality. Very common in open-canopy forests and early-seral communities on cutover and/ or burnt sites where it may hinder natural regeneration and growth of shade-intolerant conifers. Usually associated with Alnus rubra, Athyrium filix-femina, Epilobium angustifolium, Oplopanax horridus, Rubus spectabilis, Sambucus racemosa, Streptopus roseus, and Tiarella unifoliata. A nitrophytic species characteristic of Moder and Mull humus forms.
