Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants

Class: Magnoliopsida -- dicots

Family: Rosaceae -- rose

Variety: The common phase over most of its range, including the Palouse and adjacent environs, is var. parviflorus.

Species Code: RUPA

Common Name: western thimbleberry

Origin: Native to open forests and streamsides of western North America extending east to Ontario and the northern US as far as Michigan. On the Palouse it is common in open forest but uncommon in moist shrub thickets.

Rare: no

Form: shrub, deciduous, rhizomatous, forming thickets; stems 0.5-2 m tall, erect to ascending, unarmed; bark gray, flaking.

Duration: perennial

Habitat Type: forest, shrub thickets

Wetland Indicator Status: FAC-

Leaves: alternate, the long petioles stipitate-glandular; blades large, palmately lobed with 3-7 lobes, 6-15 cm long and 10-20 cm wide, glabrous to somewhat hairy on both surfaces, margins doubly dentate-serrate.

Flowers: 3-7 borne terminally in a corymb or flat-topped panicle, pedicels glandular-hairy; calyx pubescent, often stipitate-glandular, the 5-7 lobes spreading, oblong-ovate, 10-18 mm long; corolla rotate, the petals usually 5 but sometimes 6 or 7, white, oblong-obovate to obovate, 15-25 mm long; stamens and pistils numerous.

Bloom: May, June, July

Fruit: red, druplets coherent in a thimble-shaped cluster that separates intact from the receptacle when ripe, palatable but considered insipid by some.

Characteristics:
Reproduces both sexually by seed and vegetatively by rhizomes.
204,000 seeds/lb (Hassell et al 1996, USDA NRCS PLANTS Database 2007).
2n=14 (University of British Columbia 2003).
Seeds are stored in the seed bank (Tirmenstein 1989).
Apomixis is known in the genus.
Flowers are perfect.
Diploids only are known.
Fruits are edible but generally considered rather bland. They were eaten fresh, cooked, or dried by many native peoples. Native people ate the tender new shoots and used the leaves for food wrappers and basket liners. They also used the plant medicinally.
Fruit is a druplet. The druplets cohere together and separate from the receptacle when ripe.
Fruits are eaten by birds and mammals, including bears. Deer browse the leaves and stems.
An important browse species for Rocky Mountain elk in summer and fall (Kufeld 1973).
Seeds are dispersed by birds and mammals which eat the fruit.

Precipitation: 20-45 inches (USDA NRCS PLANTS Database 2007).

Fire: Enhanced by fire and recovers rapidly, sprouting from surviving rhizomes, seeds, and root crowns. Seeds survive in the seed bank and are also moved on-site by birds and mammals (Tirmenstein 1989).

Stratification: extended cold moist

Seed yield: low

Seed cleaning: difficult

Planting duration: long

Seed shatter: low

Seed size: small

Seed comments: may also be propagated from stem cuttings and probably from rhizome cuttings.

Remarks:
Propagation:
3 protocols in the Native Plant Network
cuttings, Golden Gate National Park, California
seed, Bridger Montana Plant Materials Center
seed, Glacier National Park, Montana

Reproduces both sexually by seed and vegetatively by rhizomes.