Unknown Ribes/Rubus, non native. Solved: thimbleberry

[SwampDonkey]

Well it appears to be an unknown Ribes/Rubus of some sort. It was growing on a vacant lot where buildings once stood many years ago, at least 40 and all I can remember is a pile of rubble sitting on the site. So, it was a long time back. Anyway here are some pictures.



The stem is armed with fine red hairs like a raspberry cane and some current species. It appears to be a perennial as well. Leaves have hairs on the veins on the underside and teeth on the margins are glandular. Leaves seem to be 7 inches long by 9 inches wide to the tips, 5-lobed.




A picture of the dried up fruit or possibly undeveloped fruit.

The big leaves remind me of western skunk current, although these have no odor. Leaf shape is similar to Ribes bracteosum (stink currant)  We do have a native stink currant, but these don't stink. The leaves are a lot smaller on our native currants.

Any ideas? 

[SwampDonkey]

I only keyed it out to the stink currant based on the key in "Plants of Northern BC". But, it's a non native and I don't see it in Peterson's eastern field guide. My guess, it's European.

[RynSmith]

My first thought was thimbleberry - Rubus parviflorus 

[SwampDonkey]

I was leaning that way for awhile until I jogged my noodles and remembered that most rubus leaves are trifoliate and not maple like, except thimbleberry of course. The bark of this does shred like thimbleberry. Does thimbleberry have harry stalks? I can't remember, if so than I would agree with your assessment. The withered flowers look closer to rubus than ribes. I just never paid close enough attention to them when I worked out there. It's native to the west coast, but not NB. Apparently, it has been found in Ontario and Michigan as well.

[SwampDonkey]

I looked at a few images online, and I think thimbleberry is as close as we are going to get.  Hard to believe some soul planted it here.

[RynSmith]

It does have an odd distribution:  http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=RUPA&photoID=rupa_004_ahp.tif

My reference says leaves with "long glandular stalks, finely fuzzy on both sides" which may or may not help my case here    It also says young growth is "glandular hairy."  Your picture of the fruits is what got me.  I wonder if there is a European Rubus with those weird berries...

[SwampDonkey]

I think the fruit are dried up and maybe the animals don't care for them. I know wild raspberries just fall off when over ripe. 

I did see a picture online though of dried up berries like in my post. Possibly they may have been diseased.