Rubus gothicus

Rubus gothicus is a perennial bramble in the family Rosaceae belonging to the Rubus fruticosus aggregate (subgenus Rubus, section Rubus), a complex of several hundred apomictic European blackberry microspecies. It grows as a robust scrambling shrub with arching biennial canes 1 to 3 metres long, armed with stout, broad-based prickles. The leaves are palmately compound, typically with five sharply serrate leaflets, dark green and somewhat glossy above and paler beneath. In summer it bears terminal panicles of white to pale pink five-petaled flowers about 2 to 3 centimetres across, followed in late summer and early autumn by clusters of typical blackberry fruit, each an aggregate of small juicy black drupelets attached to a fleshy receptacle that is harvested with the fruit. As with other members of the Rubus fruticosus aggregate it is largely apomictic, producing seed without sexual fertilisation, and occupies hedgerows, woodland edges, scrub and disturbed ground in central and northern Europe.