Rubus corchorifolius Seeds | Jute-leaf Raspberry

Red-brown Jute-leaf Raspberry seeds, small and rounded with a finely pitted surface, on a plain background — Jute-leaf Raspberry (*Rubus corchorifolius*): Rosaceae, native to forest edges and roadsides in China, Korea and Japan.

LATIN NAME: Rubus corchorifolius

COMMON NAME: Jute-leaf Raspberry

Plant Profile

Jute-leaf Raspberry is an upright, prickly shrub to about two metres, and it breaks one of the rules of its genus: most brambles carry compound leaves, while this one has simple, ovate leaves with serrated edges and a soft grey-green underside. White flowers open very early, often before the leaves are fully out, and the red, hollow berries ripen in late spring, weeks ahead of most raspberries.

It ranges from China and Korea to Japan, colonising forest edges, abandoned fields and roadsides. In Chinese it is shan mei, mountain berry, and it is one of the first wild fruits children pick in May.

Science & Biotechnology

The species sits in the subgenus Idaeobatus, the raspberries proper, where its simple leaves are an oddity that has made it useful in comparative studies of leaf development in Rubus. It is diploid with fourteen chromosomes, and it crosses readily with cultivated raspberries, which is why breeders have looked at it as a source of earliness and of tolerance to warm, humid summers.

Its fruit chemistry follows the family pattern, with cyanidin-based anthocyanins, ellagitannins and vitamin C, and the leaves carry the tannin mix that makes bramble leaf a mild astringent in both Chinese and European practice. Work on the species has concentrated on its phenolics and on its value as early-season breeding material rather than on any single compound.

Uses & Benefits

The berries are eaten fresh, stewed or made into jam; they are softer and more perishable than commercial raspberries, so they rarely travel and are mostly a garden and hedgerow fruit. Because they ripen before the main raspberry season they fill a gap on the table.

Suckers and seed also make the plant a quick coloniser of bare ground on acid or neutral soil, useful for holding a bank or filling the back of a wild garden. In Chinese folk practice the fruit and root were used as astringents, and the young shoots were cooked as a spring vegetable.

Growing from Seed

Sow the seed in autumn, barely covering it, and leave the pots outside for the winter; germination is triggered by cold and by light, so do not bury the seed or keep the trays in the dark. Expect seedlings in the second spring, and prick them out while they are still small, since the roots resent disturbance once they have filled a pot.

Plant out in sun or half shade on any decent, well-drained soil. The species fruits on one-year-old canes, so cut the floricanes out after harvest and leave the new canes to carry next year’s crop. It suckers freely and can become a thicket; a buried barrier or regular mowing around the patch keeps it in bounds.

Our Take

An early raspberry with a wild, soft fruit and a useful habit of colonising rough ground. Give it sun, room to sucker and a hard winter prune, and it looks after itself.

Herb Seeds