This Asian or Japanese Wineberry is native to China, Korea, and Japan. It was brought over to Europe and North America in the 1890's to be used for breeding stock for raspberries. It escaped cultivation and is a very invasive species in eastern North America, especially in the Appalachian Region. I find it very widespread and all over the place in southeastern Pennsylvania, growing in fields, waste places, and forest edges in full sun to part-shade. It usually grows about 3 to 5 feet high with reddish stems that are covered with stiff green hairs and some sharp prickles that hurt if one touches them and keeps insects and mammals from feeding upon them. The stems are biennial with the first-year stems being long, unbranched, and sterile. The undersides of the leaves are white with wooly pubescence. It bears its little white flowers in June-July and bears small red raspberries in August-September that taste good. Besides reproducing by seed, it also spreads by tip-rooting. Sadly, it is still offered for sale by some nursery sources. I usually find it happily growing around with sister east Asian invasive woody plants as Amur Honeysuckle, Japanese Multiflora Rose, Autumn-Olive, Chinese Privet, and Japanese Honeysuckle Vine.; all of which I enjoy removing or cutting down when I attack invasive plants in natural land preserves so as to encourage the return of native plants.

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