Rubus irenaeus Canopy Trees tapering foliage

tapering foliage

The startling epithet siphilitica preserves a piece of medical history: the botanist John Bartram

almost ordinary green

and seasonally flooded ground

adaptable to a range of soils

Rubus irenaeus Canopy Trees tapering foliageRubus irenaeus is a raspberry that has forgotten how to be a bramble. Rather than the arching, thorny canes of the fruiting kinds, the plant trails flat along the ground on downy, weakly prickled stems, laying down a dense evergreen carpet of large, rounded, coltsfoot like leaves, each six inches or more across, dark and glossy above and felted pale brown beneath. Few groundcovers of any kind bring foliage this bold to deep shade. The species hails