Rubus ulmifolius is a species of blackberry native to western and southern Europe and northwestern Africa. It has also become widely naturalised elsewhere in Europe, and in northern India, the Americas, southern Africa, and Australasia.
Description Rubus ulmifolius is a bramble shrub that typically grows to tall, adapted to more open, sunny habitats than many other blackberries. It usually has numerous small prickles. The leaves are palmately compound with 3 or 5 leaflets, the leaflets green on the upper surface but greenish-white on the underside because of a dense layer of woolly hairs.
The flowers are usually pink, sometimes white. The fruit is a compound drupe, ripening dark purple to almost black.
Rubus ulmifolius is unique among subgenus Rubus in displaying normal sexual reproduction; all other species are facultative apomicts.Edees, E.S., Newton, A. and Kent, D.H., 1988. Brambles of the British Isles. Ray Society.
A spineless form, Rubus ulmifolius f. inermis (Wild.) Rehd., is the progenitor of a number of cultivars grown for fruit, which is more easily harvested than in natural spiny forms.
Subspecies Rubus sanctus is often considered to be a subspecies of R. ulmifolius.
Distribution and habitat Rubus ulmifolius is found in its native range across Western Europe, from the Netherlands south to Spain and Portugal, in Britain and Ireland, as well as northwest Africa. It is naturalised in the west in the Americas (as well as southern South America) and Australasia.Multiple sources:
Pacific Island Ecosystems at Risk Altervista Flora Italiana, Rubus ulmifolius Schott includes photos and European distribution map
Troncoso, N. S. 1987. Piperaceae, Polygonaceae (Coccoloba, Muehlenbeckia, Ruprechtia, Emex), Aizoaceae, Molluginaceae, Basellaceae, Berberidaceae, Annonaceae, Menispermaceae, Capparaceae, Rosaceae. 3: 2–6,. In A. E. Burkart (ed.) Flora Ilustrada de Entre Ríos (Argentina). Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria, Buenos Aires Marticorena, C. & M. Quezada. 1985. Catálogo de la Flora Vascular de Chile. Gayana, Botánica 42: 1–157
Tela Botanica in French with photos
In Britain and Ireland it is a plant of hedges and woodland edges on calcareous soils.
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