Red-leaved bramble

Rubus adspersus is a European bramble, one of the many apomictic microspecies making up the Rubus fruticosus aggregate of the Rosaceae, native to north-western and central Europe. Like its relatives it is a scrambling, semi-woody shrub with long, arching biennial canes that are angled and armed with prickles, often rooting where the tips touch the ground. The leaves are palmately compound with three to five toothed, ovate leaflets, green above and paler and hairy beneath. White to pale pink five-petalled flowers are borne in panicles in summer, followed by aggregate fruits of small drupelets that ripen from green through red to glossy black, the familiar blackberry. It colonises hedgerows, woodland margins, scrub, banks and disturbed waste ground, thriving on a wide range of soils in sun or light shade.