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Rubus parvifolius L.

Modern name

Rubus parvifolius L.

Synonyms

R. triphyllus Thunb.

A low, deciduous shrub, forming a tangle of slender, downy, prickly stems a few feet high. Leaves composed of usually three, but sometimes five, leaflets, borne on a common stalk 112 to 2 in. long, downy, and covered with prickles. Leaflets of various shapes and sizes, usually roundish or widely obovate, 34 to 2 in. long, coarsely toothed, dark green and glabrous above, clothed with a close white felt beneath, the terminal one the largest and longest stalked. Flowers produced from the leaf-axils near the end of the shoot in few-flowered corymbs on downy, prickly stalks; petals bright rose-coloured, erect. Fruits roundish, red, edible.

Native of Japan and China; according to Bentham some of its forms are also native of Australia. It was originally imported by the Horticultural Society in 1818. It is rather pretty in blossom, but not more so than many of our native brambles. Its relationship, however, is not with them but with the raspberries (subgen. Idaeobatus).


Genus

Rubus

Other species in the genus