Flowering Raspberry, Purple-flowering Raspberry       RU-bus or-do-RA-tus

• Broadleaf deciduous shrub, usually grows to 3-6 ft (0.9-1.8 m) high, suckering, wide spreading, shoots erect, lack prickles, stems woody, very pale brown, peeling bark.  Leaves alternate, simple, large, 10-25 cm wide, palmately 3-5 lobed, each broadly triangular, middle lobe longest, base cordate, margin finely serrate.  Flowers 3-5 cm wide, fragrant, pink-purple, many per short cluster (panicle); blooms in June-August.  Fruit red, broadly hemispherical, similar in appearance to a raspberry; edible but slightly dry, crumbly and unappetizing.
• Sun or shade.
• Hardy to USDA Zone 3   Native to eastern North America, from Nova Scotia to Michigan, Tennessee, and Georgia.   Sometimes called a thimbleberry, but this common name is usually more appropriate for the similar but white-flowered Rubus parviflorus of western North America.
• odoratus: fragrant, reference to the flowers.