Alternate name: Salmon Raspberry

Family: Rosaceae, Rose view all from this family

Description An erect or sometimes leaning shrub with weakly armed stems, bright pink flowers, and yellow or salmon-red fruits that resemble a cultivated blackberry in all but color.
Height: 3—12’ (0.9—3.6 m).
Leaves: alternate; compound with 3 leaflets or simple and incompletely divided in 3; leaflets oblong to ovate, 1—3” (2.5—7.5 cm) long, doubly toothed, pointed at tip, round at base. Green and slightly downy above, covered with dense white, feltlike hairs beneath. Petioles shorter than leaf blade, armed with prickles.
Bark: golden or reddish brown, satiny, peeling in strips.
Flowers: 1—1 1/2” (2.5—4 cm) across, dark pink or red, solitary or 2—3 in open cluster; petals 5, sepals 5, hairy sharply pointed; March—July.
Fruit: ovoid or globose, 1/2—1” (1.3—2.5 cm) long, yellow, orange, or salmon-red, consisting of numerous individual small drupelets tightly packed around a central receptacle that comes off with the fruit when picked. Sweet and juicy but insipid.

Habitat Moist woods, streambanks, sunny slopes well watered by seeps.

Range Alaska to NW. California, mostly along the coast and in adjacent mountains, but also eastward to N. Idaho and W. Montana.

Discussion On moist, sunny slopes in the Cascades, Salmonberry can form impenetrable thickets. The juicy fruit, which looks like a yellow or orange blackberry, is a welcome trailside snack, though too bland for some tastes. Indians ate not only the berries but also the tender young shoots. Numerous birds and animals also feast on the fruits, which may be abundant in good years. The deep pink flowers are distinctive and may occur along with the fruits.