Landscape Plants

Broadleaf, deciduous, shrub, spreading, loosely branched, 3-20! ft (1-6 m) tall, branches slender, red to purple in the sun, green in the shade.  Leaves simple, opposite, 2-6 inches (5-15 cm) long, margins entire to wavey, tip and base both acute; upper surface wrinkled because of sunken veins, dark green, pale green and generally below, leaves turn bright red in fall.  Flowers small, white, in flat-topped, terminal clusters.  Fruit white or ivory, globose, small, ¼ inch (6 mm), single seeded.

Sun to part shade.  Best in moist well-drained soil, but it adapts to dry soils in late summer. Spreads rapidly by underground stolons or by branches in contact with the ground which root freely.

Hardy to USDA Zone 5   Native range is restricted to the western states from Alaska to California and east into Montana and Idaho.