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
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)
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.