Fu Pen Zi

Rubus chingii, the Chinese raspberry or Fu Pen Zi, is a deciduous, scrambling, woody shrub in the Rosaceae, native to the hills and forest margins of eastern and southern China and adjacent parts of Japan. The stems are slender, 1.5 to 3 meters long, arching or trailing, with sparse, slightly curved prickles and a glaucous bloom on the young growth. The alternate, simple leaves are nearly circular in outline, 5 to 10 cm across, palmately five-lobed almost to the middle, with sharply doubly serrate margins and palmate venation; both surfaces are nearly glabrous and the petioles bear small prickles. The flowers are solitary, terminal or axillary on short shoots, large for the genus at 2.5 to 4 cm across, with five white, broadly obovate petals around numerous yellow stamens. The fruit is an aggregate of small drupelets forming a hollow, hemispherical, brilliant red to deep orange-red berry about 1.5 cm across; it is harvested while still green and unripe for use as the dried medicinal drug Fu Pen Zi.