Photo: John Moss — Public domain · source
Survives zone 8 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
⚠ Honestly: large, showy, hollow scarlet fruit that is watery and near-tasteless — grown for looks, poor eating. Care: Winter protection — mulch, fleece, or a warm wall.
Spread warning. Documented as invasive/naturalized well outside its native range, including all the main Hawaiian Islands, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, Réunion, Mayotte, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Helena, Swaziland and Thailand. In Hawaii it forms dense thickets in the understory of mesic-to-wet forest and hybridizes with the endemic Hawaiian raspberries (R. hawaiensis and R. macraei), which threatens their genetic integrity.
- Hardiness
- Zone 8–9
- Habit
- Shrub
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- Summer
- Mature size
- Slender cane 1–2 m; containerable
- Light
- Partial to full sun
- Soil pH
- 6.0–7.0 (near-neutral)
- Environment
- Subtropical montane
- Native range
- Native to Australia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu, and Mauritius/Réunion in the Indian Ocean, with a broader distribution across tropical and subtropical Asia.
- Status
- Both wild and cultivated
- Years to fruit
- 2–3 yrs
- Growth speed
- Fast-growing once established; sends up vigorous new biennial canes from the rootstock each year.
- Spacing
- 250 cm (98 in) apart — about 6.3 m² (67 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Pinnately compound leaves with toothed, rose-like leaflets (hence rosifolius), borne on sparsely prickly stems and midribs.
- Root system
- Perennial woody rootstock that sends up biennial canes annually; each cane fruits in its second year, then dies back.
- Fruit description
- Bright scarlet, conical, thimble-shaped aggregate of drupelets to about 1.5cm, separating cleanly from the receptacle when picked (hollow like a true raspberry); the flesh is watery and 'insipid' rather than sweet, so it is grown mainly for its showy appearance.
- Propagation
- Seed (stratified, sown in early autumn); half-ripe wood cuttings in July–August; tip layering in July; division of the rootstock in early spring or before leaf-fall.
- 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
How it spreads. Suckers from a perennial rootstock and self-seeds via bird-dispersed fruit; where it naturalizes it can form dense thickets, climbing over other vegetation with hooked prickles.
Growing tips. Tender — hardy to roughly USDA zone 9 and needs winter protection (mulch, fleece or a warm wall) further north; grow in well-drained loamy soil in sun or semi-shade; biennial canes leaf in their first year and fruit in their second before dying; like other Rubus, susceptible to honey fungus and to Rubus-specific leaf rusts.
Companion planting. Shares rust fungi (e.g. Phragmidium and Kuehneola uredinis leaf rusts) with other Rubus species, including wild brambles growing nearby — avoid siting it close to rust-infected canes of other raspberries or blackberries.
Grow journal
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