Plant: woody shrub; to 3 m tall; canes strongly angled in cross-section, much-branched, erect, arching, sprawling, or creeping, rooting at the primocane tips, commonly living over 2 years; plants usually eglandular with stellate hairs; prickles sharp, stout, broad-based, laterally flattened, slightly to moderately recurved
Leaves: more or less evergreen, green above, gray to white below; leaflets usually ovate to obovate; margins serrate to doubly serrate; primocane leaves 12-20 cm long, 9-14 cm wide, pinnately to pedately 3-foliolate or palmately 5-foliolate; floricane leaves 9-18 cm long, 8-18 cm wide, pinnately to pedately 3-foliolate
INFLORESCENCE: conspicuously bracteate compound or simple terminal cymes with 11-numerous flowers surpassing the leaves
Flowers: sepals reflexed, sometimes apiculate, 4-10 mm long, subtomentose, ovate to broadly lanceolate; petals white to pink, 9-16 mm long; ovaries slightly pubescent to glabrous; styles glabrous
Fruit: very large, excellently flavored, spherical to hemispherical, coherent, fixed to the fleshy torus; drupelets black, glabrous to slightly pubescent, fleshy
Misc: Cultivated, escaped, and naturalized in shady riparian areas; 900-2000 m (3000-6500 ft)
Notes: Apr-Aug(-Oct)
REFERENCES: Brasher, Jeffrey W. 2001. Rosaceae. J. Ariz. - Nev. Acad. Sci. Volume 33(1).
Stems coarse, scrambling to several m, armed with strong, flattened, curved prickles; primocanes canescent toward the tip; lvs tardily deciduous, grayish- tomentose beneath, bright green and ±glabrous above, those of the primocanes mostly 5-foliolate; lfls broadly ovate to oblong-obovate, usually abruptly short-acuminate, 6-12 cm, sharply toothed; infl cymose-paniculate, often thyrsoid, with strong, flat prickles to 1 cm; cal canescent-tomentose, its unarmed lobes without long appendages; pet white to sometimes pinkish; fr subglobose to slightly elongate, 1.5 cm thick; 2n=28. European sp., occasionally escaped from cult. in the s. part of our range. June-Aug. (R. procerus)
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
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