This is a sprawling, prostrate, plant not unlike Bramble but much less prickly, less upright and with weaker stems and only reaches about 80cm high. It's a perennial which has biennial stems and which bear very pretty, slightly raggy, white flowers (20-25mm across) with numerous stamens. They bloom in June and July. The leaves are trifoliate and toothed. The blackberry-like fruits have less drupes or individual segments than those of Bramble but each segment is larger than on that plant. They also have a blue-silver bloom like that on the Sloes of the Blackthorn plant. This is a plant which grows in dry grassland, hedgerows and in sandy places. It is a native plant and it belongs to the family Rosaceae.
My first recording of this plant is in 1981 close to the shores of Lough Derg, Co Tipperary and I photographed it at Cullenstown, Co Wexford in 2008.
If you are satisfied you have correctly identified this plant, please submit your sighting to the National Biodiversity Data Centre
