Photo: Qwert1234 — CC BY-SA 3.0 · source
Survives zone 4 through 8
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
A wild East Asian raspberry used in traditional Korean medicine — unripe fruit is sold dried as 'Bok Bun Ja' (Rubi Fructus) in Korean herbal markets — with fresh fruit described as sweet and agreeably flavoured, similar in size to a small garden raspberry.
- Hardiness
- Zone 4–8
- Habit
- Shrub
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- Summer–autumn
- Mature size
- Erect shrub 1–3 m
- Light
- Partial to full sun (forest margin)
- Soil pH
- 6.0–7.0 (near-neutral)
- Environment
- Temperate
- Native range
- East Asia — Primorye (Russian Far East), China, the Korean Peninsula and Japan, found in sunny thickets on slopes, forest margins, ravines and roadsides from about 300 to 2,500 m elevation.
- Status
- Wild
- Years to fruit
- 2–4 yrs
- Growth speed
- Moderate to fast — vigorous biennial canes typical of wild raspberries, reaching full height (around 2–2.5 m) in their first season.
- Spacing
- 100 cm (39 in) apart — about 1 m² (11 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Dimorphic — large, palmately three- to five-lobed, heart-shaped-at-base leaves 12–20 cm across on vigorous first-year canes (superficially maple- or grapevine-like), versus smaller, simpler three-lobed, hawthorn-like leaves on the flowering laterals; canes carry small scattered prickles.
- Root system
- Perennial, spreading crown with fibrous roots that throws up new biennial canes each year and produces root suckers, allowing the plant to slowly colonize adjacent ground.
- Fruit description
- A small, dark red, hemispherical raspberry about 10 mm across with the typical raspberry hollow-core separation from the receptacle when picked; described in PFAF's records as large for the genus, juicy and translucent, with a sweet, agreeable flavour.
- Propagation
- By seed (autumn-sown, needing cold stratification), by half-ripe wood cuttings in July or August, by tip layering in July, or by division of suckers in early spring or autumn.
- 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. Not a heavy feeder — sources describe it growing on ordinary well-drained loamy soils without mention of special feeding; an annual mulch of compost or well-rotted manure in spring is sufficient, in line with its native disturbed-ground and forest-margin habitat.
How it spreads. Spreads by root suckers from the perennial crown and by tip-rooting where arching canes touch the ground — the same mechanism as its close relative R. idaeus, forming expanding patches rather than a single clump.
Growing tips. Biennial canes — first-year canes (primocanes) grow vegetatively, then fruit as floricanes in their second year before dying back, so old spent canes should be cut to the ground after fruiting. Canes are stiff and erect, 2–2.5 m, with small scattered prickles. Tolerates sun or semi-shade and a wide soil pH range from mildly acid to mildly alkaline. Hardy to USDA zone 4/5. First-year barren-shoot leaves are large and maple- or vine-like, three- to five-lobed; the smaller, more typically 'hawthorn-leaved' three-lobed foliage that gives the species its name appears mainly on the flowering twigs.
Grow journal
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