盾叶莓 dun ye mei

Shrubs upright or climbing, 1–2 m tall. Branchlets reddish brown or brownish, cylindric, glabrous, with sparse prickles; prickles broad, flat, glaucous. Leaves simple; petiole 4–8 cm, glabrous, with minute prickles; stipules brownish, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 1–1.5 cm × 7–10 mm, membranous, glabrous, margin entire; blade peltate, ovate-orbicular, 7–17 × 6–15 cm, both surfaces appressed villous, abaxially with more dense small prickles along midvein, base cordate, margin palmately 3–5-lobed; lobes triangular-ovate, terminal lobe slightly longer than or as long as lateral leaflets, irregularly tenuous-serrate, apex acute to shortly acuminate. Inflorescences ca. 5 cm or more in diam., 1-flowered; bracts ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 7–12 × 4–7 mm, glabrous. Pedicel 2.5–4.5 cm, glabrous. Calyx tube pelviform, glabrous; sepals ovate-lanceolate, 1–1.4 cm × 6–8 mm, soft hairy, margin usually dentate, or apically laciniate; lobes linear. Petals white, suborbicular, 1.8–2.5 cm in diam., longer than sepals. Stamens numerous, unequal in length, much shorter than petals; filaments subulate or linear. Pistils to 100 or slightly more, soft hairy. Aggregate fruit orange-red, terete or cylindric, 3–4.5 × 1–1.5 cm, densely soft hairy; pyrenes rugose. Fl. Apr–May, fr. Jun–Jul. 2n = 14.

Slopes, foothills, forest margins, ravines, moist waste places; 300--1500 m. Anhui, Guizhou, Hubei, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Zhejiang [Japan].

The edible fruit are used in medicine.