Survives zone 6 through 9
Harvest calendar
Best planted in early spring after your last frost, or in fall before the ground freezes, depending on your climate.
Black, well-flavored, raspberry-like berries are wrapped in a persistent calyx that shields them from insects — but this thornless, fast-growing Chinese shrub is planted at least as much for its huge, maple-like, felted leaves and architectural, arching stems as for the fruit itself.
- Hardiness
- Zone 6–9
- Habit
- Shrub
- Edible part
- Fruit
- Ripens
- Late summer
- Mature size
- Scrambling shrub 1.5–3 m
- Light
- Full sun to partial
- Soil pH
- 6.0–7.0
- Environment
- Montane
- Native range
- Western and southern China (Guangxi, Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Yunnan) and northern Vietnam, growing on slopes, roadsides and forest margins at 500–3,000m (up to roughly 6,000ft) elevation; first collected near Tatsien-lu (Sichuan) in 1890 and introduced to Western cultivation by E.H. Wilson for Veitch nursery, flowering there in 1908.
- Status
- Wild
- Years to fruit
- 2–3 yrs
- Growth speed
- Fast — capable of 3m+ of new cane growth per season once established.
- Spacing
- 300 cm (118 in) apart — about 9 m² (97 sq ft) per plant
- Leaf shape
- Large (7–18cm), rounded, maple-like leaves with 5–7 shallow lobes and a heart-shaped base, irregularly toothed, star-hair-downy (felted) beneath and less so above; turns deep yellow in autumn.
- Root system
- Woody perennial rootstock producing new, thornless biennial canes each year.
- Fruit description
- Black, semi-globose berries about 1cm across, an aggregate of drupelets enclosed in a persistent calyx that protects them from insect damage; well-flavored and raspberry-like, ripening relatively late in the season.
- Propagation
- Seed (stratified, sown in early autumn); half-ripe wood cuttings in midsummer; tip layering in July; division 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
Fertilizing. Does best in average-to-rich, well-drained soil with regular moisture; tolerates a wide pH range (mildly acid to mildly alkaline), so no special soil amendment beyond routine feeding is documented as necessary.
How it spreads. Unarmed (thornless), biennial stems arise each year from a woody rootstock and, left unchecked, can form dense, impenetrable thickets on cleared slopes.
Growing tips. Vigorous — canes can grow 3–3.5m (10–12ft) in a season; each cane leafs in its first year and flowers/fruits in its second before dying; grow in sun to dappled shade; reported as 'perfectly hardy' at altitude in its native range; like most Rubus, watch for honey fungus.
Grow journal
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