blackberry
An upright, arching or scrambling shrubby plant that usually forms dense thickets its stems are armed with prickles and become woody with age its compound leaves have three or five spreading leaflets and are borne on prickly stalks these leaflets are usually egg-shaped in outline or oval in shape with variously toothed margins. Its white or pale pink flowers have five petals, five sepals, and numerous stamens. Its fleshy fruit (10-30 mm across) turn red as they begin to mature and then glossy black when fully ripe.
Rubus anglocandicans is widely naturalised throughout the wetter parts of southern and eastern Australia. It is most common and widespread in eastern New South Wales, the ACT, Victoria, Tasmania, south-eastern South Australia and the coastal districts of south-western It is also occasionally naturalised in the cooler sub-coastal districts of south-eastern Queensland, in other wetter parts of South Australia, in some parts of inland southern New South Wales and on Norfolk Island.
A weed of disturbed sites, waste areas, roadsides, gardens, waterways (i.e. riparian vegetaiton), swamps, pastures, grasslands, orchards, plantations, bushland, open woodlands, forest margins and closed forests.
An upright (i.e. erect), arching or scrambling shrubby plant that tends to grow in dense thickets. It usually grows 1-2 m tall, but occasionally reaches greater heights.
For information on control measures see the Queensland Government's fact sheet
The upright (i.e. erect), arching or trailing main stems (i.e. primocanes) are armed with stout prickles (3-12 mm long) that are either curved or straight. These stems are mostly hairless (i.e. glabrous) and are green or reddish in colour when young. They become woody with age and can be round, ribbed or angular in cross-section. The shorter flowering branches (i.e. floricanes) are somewhat similar, but tend to be rounded and more hairy (i.e. pubescent) than the main stems (i.e. primocanes). The palmately compound (i.e. digitate) leaves are alternately arranged, with three or five leaflets, and are borne on prickly leaf stalks (i.e. petioles). These leaves are often whitish-hairy (i.e. pubescent) below with darker green, less hairy or hairless (i.e. glabrous), upper surfaces. Leaflets are egg-shaped in outline (i.e. ovate) or oval (i.e. elliptic) in shape (30-90 mm long and 25-50 mm wide) with variously toothed (i.e. serrated) margins. Small prickles may also be found on the underside of these leaflets, particularly along their midribs.
The flowers are borne in clusters at the tips of short side branches. They are white or pale pink in colour (20-30 mm across) with five petals (about 10 mm long), five sepals, and numerous stamens. Flowering occurs mainly during late spring and summer. The fruit are commonly referred to as 'berries', but are actually aggregate fruit consisting of many fleshy segments (i.e. druplets), each of which contains a single small seed. These rounded (i.e. globular) fruit turn from green to red in colour as they begin to mature, and are eventually glossy black in colour when fully ripe (10-30 mm across). The seeds are light or dark brown in colour, irregularly shaped or almost triangular (2-3 mm long), and have deeply pitted surfaces.
This plant reproduces by seed, however it may also produce suckers from its woody rootstock and plantlets from the stem tips that come into contact with the soil surface (this process is known as layering).Seeds are spread by animals (particularly birds) that eat the fruit, and both seeds and stem fragments are dispersed in dumped garden waste.
There are numerous other Rubus species that are native to, or naturalised, in Australia. Some of these other species can be difficult to distinguish from European blackberry (Rubus anglocandicans), and a specialist key should be consulted.The most recent, comprehensive, and easy to use resource is the Blackberry: an identification tool to introduced and native Rubus in Australia CD-ROM.
