General: Deciduous shrub; stems erect to spreading, young stems brownish-scaled, older branches brownish and scaly, 1-2 m tall.
Leaves: Opposite, entire, elliptic to narrowly egg-shaped, 1.5-6 cm long, 1-3 cm wide, greenish on the upper surface, white-scaly and brownish-scaly beneath.
Flowers: Inflorescence of 1 to several inconspicuous axillary flowers clustered on short branches; male and female flowers on separate plants, the male flowers brownish; petals lacking; sepals spreading to reflexed, 4-lobed, the lobes 1-2 mm long; stamens 8.
Fruits: Berries, bright red, oval, 6-8 mm long, fleshy, bitter, soapy to touch when crushed.
Mesic to dry sites in the lowland and steppe to subalpine zones; common throughout BC except absent on the Queen Charlotte Islands, N Vancouver Island and adjacent N coast; N to AK, YT and NT, E to NF and S to OH, MN, SD, NM and OR.
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, sub montane to subalpine, transcontinental North American deciduous shrub (sporadic in the Pacific region). Occurs predominantly in continental boreal and cool temperate climates on very dry to moderately dry, nitrogen-medium soils; its occurrence increases with increasing continentality. Common in semi-open forests on water-shedding sites; scattered on the leeward side of Vancouver Island; plentiful in the coast-interior ecotone. Often associated with Calamagrostis rubescens, Linnaea borealis, and Paxistima myrslnites. Symbiotic with nitrogen-fixing organisms. Characteristic of continental forests.
