PLANT: Woody shrubs or vines; stems (canes) usually only biennial and temporally dimorphic; first year canes (primocanes) usually vegetative; second year canes (floricanes) bearing flowers; prickles if present found on canes, leaves, and inflorescences. LEAVES: pinnately or palmately compound, or palmately lobed; primocane leaves often larger and with more leaflets than floricane leaves; stipules conspicuous, usually persistent, adnate to the petiole in ours, broad or linear. INFLORESCENCE: uniflorous or few‑many‑flowered cymes. FLOWERS: perfect, perigynous; hypanthium small; sepals 5, ascending to reflexed, commonly mucronate or caudate; petals 5, oblanceolate or spatulate to ovate, white to reddish; stamens many, distinct, erect; pistils many, on a convex to conical torus that enlarges in fruit, the styles terminal. FRUIT: a flat to conical aggregate of sweet, fleshy or dry drupelets which separate from the torus (raspberries) or not (blackberries, dewberries). x = 7. FRUIT: a flat to conical aggregate of sweet, fleshy or dry drupelets which separate from the torus (raspberries) or not (blackberries, dewberries). x = 7. NOTES: 200‑700 spp., 6 in AZ, temperate and tropical-montane, especially complex in Eur. and e N. Amer. (Latin: Pliny, rubus for bramble or blackberry). Bailey, L. H. 1941‑1945. Gentes Herb. 5:1‑932. Taxonomy complicated by hybridization, polyploidy, and apomixis. Collectors should include floricanes, primocanes, and notes regarding growth habit. Both R. neomexicanus and R. parviflorus are reported to be extensively browsed by deer. Native Americans reportedly ate the young shoots of R. parviflorus and R. idaeus, and made a tea of R. parviflorus leaves. Rubus discolor, R. idaeus, and R. leucodermis include fruit cultivars. REFERENCES: Brasher, Jeffrey W. 2001. Rosaceae. J. Ariz. – Nev. Acad. Sci. Volume 33(1).