Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Rubus vestitus
Common name
Blackberry
Family
Rosaceae
Where found
Forest, woodland, grassland, roadsides, and near streams. Coast, ranges, and tablelands, north from east of Goulburn. Occasionally elsewhere.
Notes
Introduced semi-deciduous shrub to 1.4 m high, scrambling or trailing, stems sometimes arching. Produces roots at the stem tips and suckers from the base. Forms dense thickets. Stems purplish. Prickles usually unequal, straight or curved, 2–10 mm long, on stems (mainly on the angles), axis of the flower clusters, and sometimes the sepals. Leaf margins sharply toothed. Fruit fleshy. Stems angled, with sparse to dense simple hairs and sometimes with scattered longer glandular hairs. Leaves alternating up the stems, compound, with 3 or 5 leaflets (sometimes some leaflets joined). Leaflets mostly 4–9 cm long, 30–80 mm wide, upper surface green, becoming hairless, lower surface sparsely to densely felted below a dense covering of longer hairs. Flowers pale pink fading to white with age, with 5 petals each 9–17 mm long, broadly oval, not crumpled. Flowers in pyramidal to cylindrical branched clusters. Axis of the flower clusters densely hairy with erect hairs. Flowering: mainly late spring and summer. Fruit initially green, ripening red, maturing black, more or less round, sometimes hairy, about 10 mm in diameter.
One of the species in the Rubus fruticosus species aggregate.
A Weed of National Significance. General Biosecurity Duty with additional restrictions all NSW. Pest plant ACT. Noxious weed Vic.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Rubus~vestitus (accessed 5 February, 2021)
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