Survives zone 6 through 9
Harvest calendar
Ripens: Ripe fruit early summer; ⚠ the medicinal article is picked unripe (green-yellow), May–June
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
Ripe fruit is a decent orange-red raspberry — sweet-tart, small, pleasant fresh. The dried unripe fruit (fù pén zǐ) is a traditional Chinese materia medica item, not an eating fruit — sour and astringent.
- Hardiness
- Zone 6–9
- Habit
- Shrub
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- Ripe fruit early summer; ⚠ the medicinal article is picked unripe (green-yellow), May–June
- Mature size
- Arching deciduous shrub 2–3 m; containerable
- Light
- Full sun to partial — forest margin
- Soil pH
- 5.5–7.0
- Environment
- Temperate to subtropical montane
- Native range
- Eastern and central China — Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Anhui, Jiangxi, Fujian, Guangxi and Hubei provinces, growing on sunny slopes, in thickets and along forest margins.
- Status
- Both wild and cultivated
- Years to fruit
- 2–3 yrs
- Growth speed
- Fast — vigorous new shoots grow upright to as much as 3 m in a single season.
- Spacing
- 150 cm (59 in) apart — about 2.3 m² (24 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Nearly circular leaves 5–9 cm across, deeply palmately divided into five (occasionally seven) lobes, with a heart-shaped base, irregular double-serrate margins, and fine white hairs along the veins on both surfaces.
- Root system
- A perennial crown and shallow spreading root system in the top 30–40 cm, carrying biennial canes: each cane grows one year, fruits the next, then dies. New shoots come from buds on both the crown and the roots, which is why a bramble returns from root fragments left after digging and why it is so hard to remove once settled.
- Fruit description
- An orange-red raspberry-type aggregate, small, sweet-tart and pleasant when fully ripe; the same fruit picked unripe (green-yellow) is dried whole for medicinal use rather than eaten fresh.
- Propagation
- By seed (cold-stratified for about a month near 3°C, sown in a cold frame in early autumn) or by semi-ripe wood cuttings taken in midsummer.
- Pollination
- Self-fertile
The edible parts listed above are a starting point, not a field guide. Identify a plant with certainty — ideally against a local authority — before eating any part of it, and read the full disclaimer. Spotted something wrong? Report it.
Growing guide
Fertilizing. Tolerant of clay as well as lighter soils provided drainage is good; grows in full sun or partial shade without special feeding requirements.
Growing tips. New shoots are extremely vigorous, reaching up to 3 m in a season, and tolerate hard pruning well — cut stems resprout readily from each leaf axil. Note the dual harvest: ripe, sweet-tart fruit is picked in early summer for eating, while unripe green-yellow fruit is picked separately in May–June and dried for use as the TCM herb fù pén zǐ.
Grow journal
Sign in to keep a dated log of when you planted, bloomed and harvested this plant.