Rubus cissoides

Rubus cissoides, known in New Zealand as bush lawyer or tātarāmoa, is a vigorous evergreen scrambling shrub or liane in the Rosaceae endemic to lowland and montane forest, forest margins and shrubland throughout the North, South and Stewart Islands. Stems can climb 10 metres or more into the canopy, are slender, woody and armed with numerous strongly recurved prickles that allow the plant to hook over surrounding vegetation. The alternate, long-petiolate leaves are palmately compound with three to five lanceolate to narrowly elliptic leaflets 5 to 15 centimetres long, sharply serrate on the margin, glabrous and shining green above, with prickly midribs beneath. Small whitish to greenish flowers about 6 millimetres across are produced in large, much-branched terminal panicles in spring and early summer; plants are dioecious or polygamodioecious. The fruit is a small bright red or orange-red aggregate drupelet 8 to 12 millimetres in diameter, juicy at maturity and dispersed by birds.