Rubus echinatoides

Rubus echinatoides is a European bramble belonging to the Rubus fruticosus aggregate, a vast complex of apomictic microspecies distributed across temperate Europe. It is a scrambling deciduous shrub with arching, prickly biennial canes (primocanes) up to 2–3 m long that root at the tips, and shorter flowering canes (floricanes) the following year. The leaves are palmately compound with usually five leaflets that are ovate, doubly serrate and bear scattered hooked prickles on the petiole and main veins; the lower surface is greyish-pubescent. Inflorescences are leafy terminal panicles of white to pale pink five-petalled flowers about 2 cm across with numerous stamens and carpels. The aggregate fruit is a typical blackberry of many drupelets ripening from red through purple to black, edible and sweet. Like other microspecies of the aggregate, R. echinatoides is reproductively isolated through facultative apomixis.