Brought to New Zealand in the early 1800s and originally planted around homesteads, sweet briar spread rapidly through the short tussocklands of the South Island. Sweet briar is a scrambling, thorny rose that produces small pink flowers in summer and bright orange fruits (rosehips) in early winter. Farmers consider it a pest, as it establishes browse-resistant thickets in poor pastures. On conservation lands it also has weed status, as it out-competes and displaces native plants.
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Te Ara - The Encyclopedia of New Zealand
Photograph by Melanie Lovell-Smith
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