It is known by the common names youth on age,[2] pick-a-back-plant,[3] piggyback plant, and thousand mothers.

It is a perennial plant native to the West Coast of North America, occurring in northern California, Oregon, Washington, British Columbia and southern Alaska.

[4]: 120 Tolmiea menziesii has hairy, five to seven-lobed, toothed leaves and a capsule fruit containing spiny seeds.

Each flower consists of a tubular purple-green to brown-green calyx and four linear or subulate (awl-shaped) red-brown petals, about twice the length of the sepals.

In nature, banana slugs, Ariolimax columbianus, are selective in their diet and were not observed to feed on this plant.