Shrub up to 3m tall with broad oval leaves.  Flowers are yellow
and tubular, occuring in pairs at the leaf axils and cupped in a reddish
to purplish bract.  Fruits are black and paired in the flower bracts.

Common in wet forests and along stream and wetland edges.  One
of the two or three most important hummingbird flowers of early
spring along the Oregon and Washington coast, and depended upon
heavily by fruit eating birds like Cedar Waxwing and Swainson's
Thrush.