Rubus franconicus

Rubus franconicus (Rosaceae) is a European bramble microspecies of the Rubus fruticosus aggregate, described from Franconia in southern Germany and occurring in similar central European hedgerows, forest clearings and wood margins. It is a scrambling, prickly biennial-caned shrub with stout, ridged or shallowly furrowed primocanes bearing a regular series of short, broadly based, slightly curved prickles. Leaves are pedately compound with five leaflets on robust primocanes (three on flowering branches); the terminal leaflet is ovate to obovate-elliptical with a tapered tip and finely doubly serrate margins. Inflorescences are leafy, pyramidal panicles bearing five-petalled white to pale pink flowers about 2–2.5 cm across. The fruit is a typical blackberry — a small black aggregate drupelet that ripens in late summer. Like other members of the aggregate, R. franconicus is apomictic and morphologically narrowly defined within the broader bramble complex.