Rubus pinnatusWilld.

Cape brambleSouth African brambleSouth African raspberryblackberry

WFO wfo-0001016858 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Rubus pinnatus, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. a Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2022-06-09 / obs. 205870972
Rubus pinnatus, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. b Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 181229196
Rubus pinnatus, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. c Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 180933360
Rubus pinnatus, photographed by Caroline Voget
fig. d Caroline Voget, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 177354444
Rubus pinnatus, photographed by Shaun Swanepoel
fig. e Shaun Swanepoel, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 175921317
Rubus pinnatus, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. f Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 175261246
Rubus pinnatus, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. g Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 171168506
Rubus pinnatus, photographed by Tony Rebelo
fig. h Tony Rebelo, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 171395584

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 25 botanical countries

Regions where Rubus pinnatus is native: Angola, Ascension, Burundi, Cameroon, Cape Provinces, Central African Republic, Congo, DR Congo, Eswatini, Gabon, Guinea, Gulf of Guinea Is., Ivory Coast, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Mozambique, Northern Provinces, Rwanda, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe AngolaBurundiCameroonCape ProvincesCentral African RepublicCongoDR CongoEswatiniGabonGuineaGulf of Guinea Is.Ivory CoastKenyaLesothoLiberiaMadagascarMozambiqueNorthern ProvincesRwandaTanzaniaTogoUgandaZambiaZimbabwe Ascension
Native distribution of Rubus pinnatus, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Angola ANG AFRICA
Ascension ASC
Burundi BUR
Cameroon CMN
Cape Provinces CPP
Central African Republic CAF
Congo CON
DR Congo ZAI
Eswatini SWZ
Gabon GAB
Guinea GUI
Gulf of Guinea Is. GGI
Ivory Coast IVO
Kenya KEN
Lesotho LES
Liberia LBR
Madagascar MDG
Mozambique MOZ
Northern Provinces TVL
Rwanda RWA
Tanzania TAN
Togo TOG
Uganda UGA
Zambia ZAM
Zimbabwe ZIM

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Also published as 23 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Rubus afrorum Gand.
  • Rubus afrotropicus (Engl.) Guinea
  • Rubus caffrorum Gand.
  • Rubus kingaensis Engl.
  • Rubus ledermannii Focke
  • Rubus ledermannii var. beleensis P.Royen
  • Rubus ledermannii var. serrulatus Gust.
  • Rubus madagascarius Gust.
  • Rubus madagascarius f. umbrosus Gust.
  • Rubus pappei Eckl. & Zeyh.
  • Rubus pinnatus f. lobatus Gust.
  • Rubus pinnatus f. subglandulosus Gust.
  • Rubus pinnatus f. suprapilosus Gust.
  • Rubus pinnatus subsp. afrotropicus Engl.
  • Rubus pinnatus subvar. concolor Hauman
  • Rubus pinnatus var. afrotropicus (Engl.) Gust.
  • Rubus pinnatus var. defensus Gust.
  • Rubus pinnatus var. ledermannii Engl.
  • Rubus pinnatus var. mutatus Gust.
  • Rubus pinnatus var. subglandulosus (Gust.) R.A.Graham
  • Rubus rosifolius unranked pinnatus (Willd.) Kuntze
  • Rubus rungwensis Engl.
  • Rubus subulatus Welw. ex Focke

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.