Devil's club is a dramatic shrub that has immense maple-like leaves, dense spines, and large conical racemes clustered with red fruits. The small shrub acts well as a barrier plant.

Oplopanax horridus

devil’s club

Description:

Maple-like leaves, dense spines, and large conical racemes clustered with red fruits.
The small white flowers bloom with 5 petals, green to greenish-white, eventually maturing into the red-fruited "devil's club".
The spines cover the branches and the undersides of leaves

Stems are armed with dense long yellow prickles, often sticking straight out at the base, usually upright, from one to four meters.
Leaves alternate; blades palmately 5(13)-lobed, 1–4 dm wide, margins serrate, veins prickly; stipulate.
Inflorescences terminal, compact umbels arranged in elongate panicles or racemes.
Fruits flattened, 5–8 mm, red, shiny.
Seeds 2–3.
Habitat Moist woods, talus slopes, streamsides, ditches, wet areas.
Flowering May through August.
Native: Yes.