Largeleaf blackberry

Rubus macrophyllus, the large-leaved blackberry, is a robust perennial bramble of the Rosaceae family native to central and western Europe, ranging into the British Isles and parts of southern Scandinavia. It typically forms scrambling thickets 1 to 2.5 m tall, with arching biennial canes (primocanes) that are angular, furrowed and clothed in sparse, broad-based prickles and occasional stalked glands. The palmately compound leaves are conspicuously large, with three to five broadly ovate, doubly serrate leaflets, the terminal leaflet acuminate, dark green and glabrescent above and softly pubescent beneath. Inflorescences on the second-year floricanes are leafy, pyramidal panicles bearing pinkish-white, five-petalled flowers about 2 to 3 cm across. The aggregate fruit is a juicy black drupelet cluster ripening in late summer. The species belongs to the taxonomically complex Rubus fruticosus aggregate and is recognised as a microspecies within that group.