Color, green. Petals, 5, small, flat, spreading. Fruit, a small, black, bristly berry not agreeable to the taste. Flowers, 4 to 9, small, in racemes, on bracted pedicels. Leaves, thin, downy along veins, 5 to 7-lobed, the lobes toothed or cut. Whole stem and branches covered densely with weak bristles and larger thorns. May and June.

Found in cold woods, in swamps, in New England, New York, westward to Michigan. Neither a gooseberry nor a currant, but partaking of the characteristics of both.