elmleaf blackberry

Rubus ulmifolius is a bramble shrub that typically grows to 2–3 metres (6 ft 7 in – 9 ft 10 in) 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.

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.

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. In Britain and Ireland it is a plant of hedges and woodland edges on calcareous soils.