"Have you ever seen this flower?"
If you live in Settle, well
"Yes you have."
It is ALL around Booths Car Park.
(I am just taking a break from Pink Flowers and skipping back to White Flowers so that you can go and look for it whilst it is in flower in the Car Park and not in (red) fruit.. if it does make any fruit this year)
Yep, it is a type of Bramble.
But it is not ordinary Bramble. It has simple, not divided leaves. The dense red "spines" are soft not prickly. It is supposed to be good for flower arranging.
The great thing about doing this blog is that it has forced me to go and look up which type of bramble it is: Well it is Rubus tricolor - Chinese Bramble. It grows on slopes, forests and thickets at elevations of 1800 - 3600 metres in Sichuan and Yunnan.
The Wildflower Finder Blog has pictures of it spreading rapidly over sites in neighbouring Lancashire. It says that it rarely flowers.
That's interesting. One year I saw a man picking the red fruit from Booths Car Park and I thought "Good on him, making use of the fruit".
Then I have looked for fruit in the years since and not seen any.
I had to look quite hard to find these flowers to photograph
It is not self pollinating so requires insects for pollination.
The author of the Wildflower Finder Blog has not seen them flowering and says
"It is spreading fast and should, if it is not already, be on the incredibly invasive species list.
Click here to see its distribution in UK - It seems to have centres in London and Manchester.
I see it is not recorded for Settle - but maybe as it is still just in Booths Car Park it does not count as a garden escape ... yet.
Have you seen it growing anywhere else around Settle? Do let me know.
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| Flowers at South East Entrance/Exit to Booths |
---- Click here for more flowers coming out around Settle ---
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