Salmonberry is a tall, thicket-forming shrub of wet ground in the lower forests around Mt. Hood. It blooms early, with magenta flowers opening from March into June, and on the Pacific Coast its flowering often lines up with the arrival of migrating rufous hummingbirds. Hummingbirds and insects matter here, because each flower needs pollen from a different plant to set fruit.
Later the canes carry soft, raspberry-like fruit in shades from yellow to orange to deep red. Birds, bears and other mammals eat the fruit and scatter the seeds, which can wait in the soil for many years. Birds tend to choose the red fruits over the orange ones. Deer and elk browse the young leaves and stems.
Salmonberry spreads underground, sending up new stems from rhizomes a few feet from the parent plant, and once the forest canopy opens it can form dense stands within two or three years. It resprouts readily after fire or cutting. As trees close overhead it thins out, but it hangs on along creeks, in gaps and at forest edges, and it can dominate some streamside understories for decades. Shady trails along creeks in the lower forest are the best place to find it.
How to identify it
An upright shrub usually 7 to 13 feet tall, with scattered weak prickles that are densest near the base. Each leaf has three leaflets with sharp, double teeth. Magenta to pinkish red flowers grow one or two at a time, followed by raspberry-like fruit that may be yellow, orange or red.
Look-alikes
Thimbleberry often grows nearby but has no prickles, large single leaves with about five lobes, white flowers and red fruit. Salmonberry's leaves are split into three leaflets and its flowers are magenta.
Habitat
Moist to wet ground: streambanks, swampy spots, forest openings and edges, and disturbed areas such as old clearcuts and burns. It is most abundant at low elevations, mainly below about 3,000 feet in Oregon, though in the Cascades it reaches above 4,000 feet.
Sightings in the forest
565 research-grade sightings in Mt. Hood National Forest on iNaturalist, most recently on October 6, 2026. See them on iNaturalist →