Japanese raspberry

Rubus parvifolius is a low, sprawling deciduous shrub of the Rosaceae family with slender arching to procumbent stems 0.5-2 m long that root where they touch the ground; canes are armed with scattered short, often hooked prickles and clothed in a fine greyish-white tomentum. Leaves are alternate, pinnately compound (rarely simple on young growth) with three to five ovate to rhombic leaflets 2-6 cm long, irregularly toothed, dark green above and densely white-tomentose beneath, giving the foliage a conspicuously two-coloured appearance. Petioles and rachises bear small recurved prickles and the same white indument. Stipules are linear and persistent. Flowers are borne in small few-flowered terminal and axillary cymes; each is 1-1.5 cm across with five pink to deep rose petals shorter than the long pointed sepals, and numerous stamens surrounding a cluster of separate carpels on a conical receptacle. The fruit is a small bright red aggregate of 10-20 drupelets 7-12 mm across that separates cleanly from the receptacle, edible and pleasantly raspberry-flavoured. Native to East Asia (Japan, Korea, China) and across temperate eastern Australia, growing on roadsides, forest margins and disturbed ground.