Rubus bambusarum Focke

The young leaves are used for tea.

Shrubs scandent, evergreen. Branchlets reddish brown to grayish brown, terete, with slightly curved prickles, tomentose-villous when young, glabrescent, glabrous in age. Leaves palmately compound, 3–5-foliolate; petiole 2.5–5.5 cm, tomentose at first, gradually glabrescent, finally glabrous, leaflets subsessile; stipules early caducous, elliptic or ovate-lanceolate, 1–1.5 cm × 3–5 mm, submembranous, soft hairy, margin usually entire, apex acute to shortly acuminate; blade of leaflets narrowly lanceolate or narrowly elliptic, 7–13 × 1–3 cm; midvein brownish, raised abaxially, leathery, abaxially densely gray or yellowish gray tomentose, adaxially glabrous, base broadly cuneate, margin sparsely inconspicuously serrulate, apex acuminate. Inflorescences terminal or axillary, subracemes, 8–12 × 4–7 cm; rachis and pedicels gray or yellowish gray villous, with sparse, minute prickles, sometimes with intermixed glandular hairs; bracts ovate-lanceolate, 0.8–1.2 cm × 2–4 mm, membranous, soft hairy, margin entire or apically serrate. Pedicel to 1 cm. Calyx densely sericeous-villous; tube campanulate; sepals often reflexed in fruit, ovate-lanceolate or triangular-lanceolate, 7–10 × 3–5 mm, margin entire, apex acuminate to caudate. Flowers 1–2 cm in diam. Petals purplish red to reddish, obovate or broadly elliptic, 5–7 × 4–6 mm, basally puberulous. Stamens many, soft hairy. Pistils 25–40, slightly longer than stamens; styles villous. Aggregate fruit red to reddish black, subglobose, with persistent villous styles. Fl. May–Jun, fr. Jul–Aug.

Guizhou, Hubei, Shaanxi, Sichuan.

Clearings on hills, forests; 1000--3000 m.

Rubus henryi Hemsley & Kuntze var. bambusarum (Focke) Rehder.