Rubus septentrionalis

Rubus septentrionalis is a northern North American bramble of the family Rosaceae, treated by many authors as a microspecies within the wider Rubus fruticosus aggregate of blackberries. It is an arching, biennial-caned shrub with stout, ridged stems armed with stout, recurved prickles, rooting where the cane tips touch the ground. Leaves are palmately compound with three to five ovate, doubly serrate leaflets that are green above and paler beneath. The white to pale pink, five-petalled flowers are borne in short, leafy cymes in early summer and give way to glossy black aggregate drupelets that ripen in late summer. It grows in clearings, forest edges, fencerows and old fields across the northern United States and southern Canada, often forming dense thickets on disturbed soils.