A deciduous spiny shrub 3 to 6 ft high; young shoots downy. Leaves roundish in the main, 3⁄4 to 2 in. wide, three- to five-lobed, the lobes roundish toothed, downy or glabrous above, downy and glandular beneath and on the stalk. Flowers usually in pairs on a glandular-hairy stalk. Calyx-tube purplish red, downy, the sepals twice or thrice the length of the tube, recurved; petals white, erect, the stamens much protruded beyond them; anthers almost as broad as long; ovary covered with glands. Berry oblong, red brown, glandular. Bot. Mag., t. 4931.
Native of western N. America from southern British Columbia to northern California; introduced about 1852 by W. Lobb for Messrs Veitch, but not often seen now, although, like the others of this group, very pretty when flowering in April. From the allied crimson-flowered gooseberries in cultivation, viz., R. menziesii, R. roezlii, and R. cruentum, this is very well distinguished in flower by the anthers being rounded at the top (in the others they are tapered like an arrowhead).