Prickly creeping plant seeks blood
The hooked climbers of New Zealand belong to the genus Rubus as does the introduced weed blackberry. Maori legend tells us that Tutekoropaka was chased to New Zealand from Hawaiiki and brought tataraheka, the Rubus family with him. He planted them around his hiding places to enable him to escape his pursuers.
The most commonly encountered hooked climber is Tataramoa, Rubus cissoides or Bush lawyer and when it becomes attached to you it will not let you go until it has drawn blood. Perhaps that is the reason for its English name.
The backward-pointing prickles on the stems and leaves help the vine climb to the open canopy of a forest but also to snare unwary trampers on the edge of a track.
The leaves are hand-shaped with three to five-toothed ’‘fingers’’.
Rubus cissoides flowers from June to August and the flowers are either male or female, but only one sex is to be found on any one plant so there are both male and female plants and they are pollinated by insects.
The berry is shaped like a small blackberry and was once used by early Europeans to make jams and jellies. A purple to dull blue dye can be made from the fruit.
Rubus australis is similar to tataramoa but with smaller and broader, coarsely toothed leaflets and with smaller clusters of flowers.
It is a scrambling climber with slender prickly branches that creep along the ground and then climb into shrubs and trees.
Rubus squarossus grows in open situations and on shrubs. The leaflet blades never form and only elongated petioles and the almost threadlike midribs of the leaflets develop, all having yellow prickles allowing them to climb.
When the stems reach the tree crowns the plant produces normal leaves with well formed narrow leaflets. Both these plants would have been common in Nelson forests before European settlement.
Rubus parvus or Ground Lawyer is a prickly creeping plant which forms a thick carpet if grown in a dry sunny situation. It grows naturally in upland areas of Westland and is suitable for garden use so has been selected and developed by nurseries for sale as ground cover.
It grows well in rocky, stoney places and produces 2cm long, bright red, raspberry-like berries which are edible but fairly tasteless.
In the summer of 1898, S D Barker, of Christchurch, discovered one plant of a species of Rubus growing on the floor of the forest near Lake Brunner, Westland. Now known as Rubus barkeri, it is a natural sterile hybrid between R. parvus and R. australis.
It has become popular in gardens as ground cover and propagation is by cuttings or layers.
Its reddish-brown leaves are long and pointed, with leaflets that are lance-shaped. In winter the leaves becoming almost burgundy coloured.
As it is a sterile hybrid it does not flower or fruit.