Dendritic silver nanostructured surface has been prepared on copper substrate by a simple replacement reaction. It was observed that morphology of the silver surface became much rough with reaction time, from initial nanosized clusters to nanostructured dendrites. The silver surface modified with dodecanethiol showed great superhydrophobicity. It was also found that the dendritic silver nanostructured surface demonstrated highly sensitive surface enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) character. It is expected that the dendritic silver surface may be applied as molecular probe and biological sensing. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.